Offences
22.—(1) A person is guilty of an offence if–
(a)for the purposes of obtaining any financial assistance under these Regulations for themselves or any other person, they knowingly or recklessly make a statement which is false or misleading in any material particular; or
(b)they intentionally obstruct an authorised person (or a person accompanying that person and acting under that person’s instructions) in the exercise of the powers under regulation 14.
(2) A person guilty of an offence under paragraph (1) shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.
(3) Proceedings for an offence under these Regulations may be commenced within the period of 12 months from the date on which the offence was committed.
(4) Section 136(3) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995(1) (date of commencement of proceedings) shall apply for the purposes of this regulation as it applies for the purposes of that section.
(5) Where an offence under paragraph (1) is committed by a body corporate or a partnership and is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, any director, manager, secretary or similar officer of the body corporate, or any person who was purporting to act in such a capacity (or in the case of a partnership, a partner or a person who was purporting to act as such), that person as well as the body corporate or the partnership, as the case may be, is guilty of the offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.
(6) Where the affairs of a body corporate are managed by its members, paragraph (5) applies in relation to the acts and defaults of a member in connection with the member’s management functions as if the member were a director of the body corporate.