Offences of providing false or misleading information

article 75(1) of The Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

• Revoked
• Requires proof of a state of mind
• Either way
• Corporate, financial services, company law, employment, charity, electoral and tax

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 Any person who knowingly or recklessly provides the Regulator with information which is false or misleading in

a material particular is guilty of an offence if the information—

a is provided in purported compliance with

a requirement under—

i Article 57 (the register: duties of trustees or managers),

ii Article 59 (duty of trustees or managers to provide scheme return),

iii Article 67 (provision of information), or

iv Article 70 (inspection of premises: powers of inspectors),

b is provided in applying for registration of

a pension scheme under Article

4 of the 1999 Order (register of stakeholder pension schemes), or

c is provided otherwise than as mentioned in sub-paragraph (a) or (b) but in circumstances in which the person providing the information intends, or could reasonably be expected to know, that it would be used by the Regulator for the purpose of exercising its functions under this Order or the 1995 Order.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds

a person

Conduct

making a false or misleading statement

Fault element

Requires proof of a state of mind

Burden of proof

No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove both that the conduct happened and that it was done with the state of mind the provision names (knowingly, knowingly or recklessly, recklessly).

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: mens rea word in the offence-creating words: knowingly, recklessly, knowingly or recklessly.

What would breach article 75(1)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

1. On these words an offence is committed where a person knowingly or recklessly provides the Regulator with information which is false or misleading in a material particular.
2. Entering a figure on a form or return that is known to be wrong under the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005.
3. Leaving out something the form asks for, where the omission is what makes the answer misleading.
4. Producing a document to an official that has been altered since it was issued.

Penalty

Mode of trial

Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court

Maximum fine

£5,000

Maximum prison (summary)

Not determined

Maximum prison (on indictment)

2 years

expressed as the statutory maximum (the prescribed sum): the same words mean £5,000 in England and Wales and £10,000 in Scotland.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

• Sentencing organisations: fines and the means of a corporate defendant All courts in England and Wales

  How a fine on a company is arrived at from its turnover. Relevant far beyond the guidelines that state it, because a very large share of the offences in this corpus can only be committed by an organisation.

• Fraud, bribery and money laundering offences: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2014

  Covers fraud, false accounting, bribery and money laundering, including offences committed by organisations.

• Imposition of community and custodial sentences: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales

  When a community order or custody is justified at all, and the presumption against short custodial sentences.

• Reduction in sentence for a guilty plea: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 June 2017

  The sliding scale of credit for pleading guilty, from one third at the first stage of proceedings downwards.

• General guideline: overarching principles All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2019

  The guideline a court uses when there is no offence-specific guideline, which is the position for the overwhelming majority of offences created by statutory instrument. It sets out how culpability and harm are assessed from first principles.

• Totality: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales

  How to sentence more than one offence at once so that the total is just and proportionate - frequently in point here, because regulatory prosecutions commonly charge several breaches of the same instrument.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status

Revoked

Revoked by

The Public Service Pensions (2014 Act) (Commencement No.2) Order (Northern Ireland) 2015

Made

9 February 2005

In force from

Not determined

Extent

Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order, which is made only for purposes corresponding to the Pensions Act 2004, makes provision relating to pensions and financial planning for retirement, and for connected purposes.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

• Pensions Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) (Equal Treatment by Occupational Pension Schemes) Regulations 2023 Lords · 14 November 2023 · Baroness Sherlock (Lab)

  My Lords, I thank the Minister for a very helpful introduction to these orders and particularly for explaining the background to the court cases, which will make reading Hansard for this debate a bit more comprehensible than might otherwise have been the case. I also thank my noble friend Lady Drake, to whose comments I shall return, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, whose confidence in my…

• Pensions (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill Commons · 24 April 2024 · Mr Robertson

  I am grateful for that intervention; it is a good question. Not being a medical person, I assume it would bring some more illnesses within the definition, but it will not affect a huge number of people. As I say, the Bill is fairly narrow in scope. What I hope it will do is prompt the providers of other pension schemes to consider adopting the 12-month period rather than six months. Yes, I am sure it will bring in…

• Pension Schemes Bill (Seventh sitting) Commons · 11 September 2025 · Torsten Bell

  These new clauses are intended to help schemes affected by the implications of the Virgin Media v. NTL pension trustees court judgments, which found that certain benefit changes could be void if a scheme cannot produce actuarial confirmation that they met the requirements at the time. That has created significant uncertainty about affected schemes’ liabilities and funding requirements. The new clauses apply to…

• Pension Schemes Bill Commons · 3 December 2025 · Torsten Bell

  Specifically on the question of having regard to international law, I emphasise that compliance extends far beyond the LGPS, and it obviously reaches right across Government. That said, the LGPS, as a public sector scheme, has particularly high expectations on responsible investment, and I have heard the points my hon. Friend has made. The hon. Members for Torbay (Steve Darling), for Horsham (John Milne) and for…

Other offences in the same instrument

• Penalties relating to Articles 173 and 174article 175(1)
• Penalties relating to Articles 173 and 174article 175(2)
• Penalties relating to Articles 173 and 174article 175(6)
• Any person who knowingly or recklessly provides information which is false or misleading in a material…article 177(1)
• No indemnification for fines or civil penaltiesarticle 233(4)
• Penalties relating to Articles 67 to 70article 72(1)
• Penalties relating to Articles 67 to 70article 72(2)
• Penalties relating to Articles 67 to 70article 72(5)
• Restricted informationarticle 77(5)

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis

the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”

Confidence

0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source

• This provision on legislation.gov.uk The authoritative text. Check it before relying on anything here.
• The Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005 Every offence this instrument creates, and its explanatory note
• Corporate, financial services, company law, employment, charity, electoral and taxOther offences on the same subject
• Offences created in 2005