Communications Act 2003

Prospective

Saving for guarantees of liabilities of telecommunications code operators E+W+S+N.I.

18 (1) This paragraph applies where, immediately before the abolition of licensing, a person holding a licence under section 7 of the 1984 Act (“the operator”) — E+W+S+N.I.

(a) is a person to whom the telecommunications code applies in respect of the running of a telecommunications system by him (“the operator’s system”); and

(b) in pursuance of a condition of his licence imposed for the purpose of securing that sufficient funds are available to meet code-related liabilities specified in the licence, is a party to any guarantee arrangements.

(2) Arrangements are guarantee arrangements for the purposes of this paragraph if they are arrangements under which a person (the “guarantor”) is obliged, in circumstances specified in the arrangements, to make payments in respect of a failure by the operator to meet a code-related liability specified in the licence.

(3) The guarantor’s obligation to make payments under the guarantee arrangements is not to arise by reason only of the abolition of licensing.

(4) In relation to times after the abolition of licensing, the guarantee arrangements are to have effect, notwithstanding the operator’s licence having ceased to have effect on the abolition of licensing and subject to sub-paragraph (7), as if the following references continued to have effect—

(a) references in those arrangements to the code-related liabilities specified in the licence; and

(b) (subject to sub-paragraph (5)(a)) references, for the purposes of any provision identifying the circumstances in which payments are to be made under the arrangements, to events specified in the licence.

(5) In relation to such times, those arrangements are also to have effect—

(a) as if references (directly or indirectly) to the revocation, or to the expiration without renewal, of the operator’s licence were references to his becoming subject to a direction by virtue of which he is prohibited from providing the whole or a part of his network; and

(b) as if references to the telecommunications code were references to the electronic communications code.

(6) In sub-paragraph (5) the reference to a person’s becoming subject to a direction by virtue of which he is prohibited from providing the whole or a part of an electronic communications network—

(a) does not include a reference to his becoming subject to a direction imposing a prohibition for a fixed period of less than eighteen months or to a direction that will have to be revoked if not confirmed; but

(b) except in the case of a direction imposing a prohibition for such a fixed period, does include a reference to the confirmation of a direction that would otherwise have had to be revoked.

(7) The guarantor is not to be liable in respect of any liability arising in connection with or as a result of activities carried on after the abolition of licensing except in so far as those activities are activities carried on for the purposes of providing the operator’s network.

(8) In this paragraph “code-related liabilities”, in relation to the operator, means liabilities arising or incurred by him—

(a) by reason of the application to him of the telecommunications code;

(b) by reason of its ceasing to apply to him; or

(c) otherwise in respect of activities carried on by him in connection with running the operator’s system.

(9) In this paragraph—

• “the electronic communications code” has the same meaning as in Chapter 1 of Part 2 of this Act;

• “the operator’s network” means so much of any electronic communications network provided by the operator as is a network in relation to which the electronic communications code applies in the operator’s case by virtue of paragraph 17(3)(a) of this Schedule;

• “the telecommunications code” means the code set out in Schedule 2 to the 1984 Act (as it had effect immediately before the abolition of licensing).