The Energy Order 2003 (Supply of Information) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2008

Information whose disclosure would be affected by the application of other legislation

5.—(1) The Authority may refuse to supply under Article 24 of the Order any information not falling within regulation 4(1) which—

(a) was disclosed to the Authority in circumstances in which that disclosure would have been prohibited by or under a statutory provision imposing general restrictions on the disclosure of information but for an exemption from those restrictions naming the Authority as a person to whom information may be disclosed whether generally or for specified purposes or in specified circumstances; or

(b) was obtained by the Authority in the exercise of functions which it may exercise concurrently with the Office of Fair Trading under Part IV of the Enterprise Act 2002(1) or under Part I of the Competition Act 1998(2).

(2) The Authority or a licence holder may refuse to supply under Article 24, and the Council may refuse to supply under Article 26, of the Order any information—

(a) whose disclosure would be prohibited by or under any statutory provision other than the Electricity (Northern Ireland) Order 1992, the Gas (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 or the Order; or

(b) whose disclosure is incompatible with any Community obligation.

(3) Subject to paragraph (4), the Authority or a licence holder may refuse to supply under Article 24, and the Council may refuse to supply under Article 26, of the Order any information which constitutes personal data within the meaning of section 1(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998(3) and where —

(a) in a case where the information falls within any of paragraphs (a) to (d) of the definition of “data” in that section, the disclosure of the information to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles or section 10 of that Act (right to prevent processing likely to cause damage or distress); or

(b) in any case, the disclosure of the information to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles if the exemptions in section 33A(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (which relate to manual data held by public authorities) were disregarded.

(4) A licence holder may not, by virtue of paragraph (3) refuse to supply information which relates to a person who has made a complaint to which Article 22 of the Order applies and which is being investigated by the Council.

(1)

2002 c.40; see also Article 46 of S.I. 1992/231 (N.I. 1) and Article 23 of S.I. 1996/275 (N.I. 2)

(2)

1998 c.41; see also Article 46 of S.I. 1992/231 (N.I. 1) and Article 23 of S.I. 1996/275 (N.I. 2)

(3)

1998 c.29