The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Exemption) Order 2001

Employee share schemes in electricity industry shares

41.—(1) Each of the persons to whom this paragraph applies is exempt from the general prohibition in respect of any regulated activity of the kind specified by article 14, 21 or 25 of the Regulated Activities Order (dealing in investments as principal or agent or arranging deals in investments) which he carries on for the purpose of—

(a) enabling or facilitating transactions in electricity industry shares or debentures between or for the benefit of any qualifying person; or

(b) the holding of electricity industry shares or debentures by or for the benefit of any qualifying person.

(2) This paragraph applies to—

(a) The National Grid Holding plc;

(b) Electricity Association Limited;

(c) any body corporate in the same group as the person mentioned in sub-paragraph (a) or (b);

(d) any company listed in Schedule 1 to the Electricity Act 1989 (Nominated Companies) (England and Wales) Order 1990(1); and

(e) a person holding shares in or debentures of a body corporate as trustee in pursuance of arrangements made for either of the purposes mentioned in sub-paragraph (1) by the Secretary of State, by any of the bodies mentioned in sub-paragraphs (a) to (c) or by an electricity successor company or by some or all of them.

(3) In this paragraph—

(a) “electricity industry shares or debentures” means—

(i) any investment of the kind specified by article 76 or 77 of the Regulated Activities Order (shares or instruments creating or acknowledging indebtedness) in or of an electricity successor company;

(ii) any investment of the kind specified by article 79 or 80 of that Order (instruments giving entitlement to investments and certificates representing certain securities), so far as relevant to the investments mentioned in sub-paragraph (i); and

(iii) any investment of the kind specified by article 89 of that Order (rights to or interests in investments) so far as relevant to the investments mentioned in sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii);

(b) “qualifying person” means—

(i) the bona fide employees or former employees of The National Grid Holding plc, Electricity Association Limited or any other body corporate in the same group as either of them; and

(ii) the wives, husbands, widows, widowers or children (including, in Northern Ireland, adopted children) or step-children under the age of eighteen of such employees or former employees;

(c) references to an electricity successor company include any body corporate that is in the same group and “electricity successor company” means a body corporate which is a successor company for the purposes of Part II of the Electricity Act 1989(2);

(d) “former employees” of a person (“the employer”) include any person who has never been employed by the employer so long as he occupied a position in relation to some other person of such a kind that it may reasonably be assumed that he would have been a former employee of the employer had the reorganisation of the electricity industry under Part II of the Electricity Act 1989 been affected before he ceased to occupy the relevant position.

(1)

S.I. 1990/224.

(2)

1989 c. 29.