Where the Department receives damages paid in favour of a client it shall, subject to the following paragraphs, pay to the client a sum representing the net interest earned while the damages are being held by the Department.

Without prejudice to its other powers to invest money, the Department shall maintain and may deposit damages to which this regulation refers in individual accounts at a deposit taker.

The rate of interest payable to the client under this regulation shall be the rate payable on damages deposited in the individual account.

Subject to paragraph (5), interest shall be payable for the period beginning on the second business day after the date on which damages are received by the Department to and including the date on which the Department determines the amount to be paid under regulation 14(8).

If the damages are received by the Department by way of cheque, interest shall only become payable once the cheque has cleared with the deposit taker and the damages monies have been applied to the Department’s account.

In this regulation —

• “business day” means a day other than a Saturday, a Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday, a bank holiday under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 197114 or a day when the Department is not open for business; or any other day when the deposit taker providing banking services to the Department is not open for business.

• “deposit taker” means the bank which is providing banking services to the Department, or the branch, situated in Northern Ireland of either –

  1. a

     a person with permission under Part 4 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 200015 to accept deposits, or

  2. b

     an EEA firm of the kind mentioned in paragraph 5(b) of Schedule 3 to that Act, which has permission under paragraph 15 of that Schedule (as a result of qualifying for authorisation under paragraph 12(1) of that Schedule) to accept deposits;

• “individual account” means an interest bearing account opened in the name of the Department designated in the name of the client to enable the Department to hold funds on behalf of a client.