UK Offence Report

9B Any person who contravenes regulation 9A is guilty of an offence.

regulation 9B of The Community Emissions Trading Scheme (Allocation of Allowances for Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2008

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

9B Any person who contravenes regulation 9A is guilty of an offence.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
contravening a requirement of the instrument
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

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

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach regulation 9B?

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 contravenes regulation 9A.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Community Emissions Trading Scheme (Allocation of Allowances for Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2008, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated here: this instrument amends another one, and the penalty for the offence is in the instrument being amended.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

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.

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
Status not determined
Made
22 July 2008
In force from
12 August 2008
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

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

These Regulations amend the Community Emissions Trading Scheme (Allocation of Allowances for Payment) Regulations 2008 (the “principal Regulations”) in order to create a criminal offence of wrongful disclosure of confidential information. They also make a minor amendment in order to permit allowances to be allocated to an account holder following an auction as a consequence of a review of a decision made by the person conducting an auction Regulation 4 inserts new definitions of a “bid instruction” and “confidential information” in the principal Regulations. Regulation 5 amends regulation 7 of the principal Regulations to permit allowances to be allocated to an account holder following an auction as a consequence of a review carried out under a Treasury scheme made under section 16(5) of the Finance Act 2007 of a decision by the person conducting an auction. Regulation 6 inserts a new regulation 9A after Regulation 9 (transfer of excess allowances) in the principal Regulations. Regulation 9A provides that confidential information must not be disclosed by any person who obtains the information, whether directly or indirectly, from an account holder unless disclosure is permitted under this regulation. The regulation then sets out a list of permitted disclosures of confidential information. Regulation 6 also inserts a new regulation 9B which provides that disclosure in breach of regulation 9A is an offence. Regulation 6 also inserts a new regulation 9C which provides that it is a defence to prove that the person charged reasonably believed the disclosure to be lawful or took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence. Regulation 6 inserts a new regulation 9D which sets out the penalties for a person guilty of the offence. New regulation 9D also makes provision in relation to corporate bodies and provides that the Director of Public Prosecutions must give consent before proceedings may be instituted for an offence under regulation 9B. These Regulations amend the framework for allocating Community tradeable emissions allowances in return for payment, and as with the principal Regulations, no administrative impact in the private sector is foreseen. The administrative impact of allocations in return for payment will depend on the detailed design of the auction or other allocation method. The Government consulted on auction design and other allocation methods at the end of 2007 and that consultation was accompanied by a full Impact Assessment, which can be found at www.defra.gov.uk. The Treasury will publish a Scheme, which will cover the conduct and terms of allocation, along with the detailed design of the auctions or other sales methods, and the requirements in order to participate. An updated impact assessment will be published along with the Scheme.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

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