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Exchange of information and co-operation
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18. (1) In this section, “regulatory authorities” means the Bank, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and the Pensions Authority.
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(2) The Council and the Ombudsman shall co-operate with the regulatory authorities with a view to ensuring that this Act operates in a way that contributes to promoting the best interests of consumers and actual or potential beneficiaries of financial or pension services and to the efficient and effective handling of complaints.
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(3) Notwithstanding anything contained in any enactment, for the purposes of the performance of the functions of the Ombudsman under this Act, information held by the Ombudsman may be transferred by the Ombudsman to the regulatory authorities.
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(4) The Ombudsman may, or shall whenever requested in writing to do so by a regulatory authority provide that regulatory authority with records or copies of records, or information, dealing with specified matters, or matters of a specified kind, relevant to the performance of the functions of the regulatory authority.
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(5) The Council or the Ombudsman may make recommendations to the regulatory authorities in relation to measures that those bodies might take in order to—
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(a) effectively deal with persistent patterns of complaints made against—
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(i) specified financial service providers,
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(ii) a specified class of financial service providers,
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(iii) specified pension providers, or
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(iv) a specified class of pension providers,
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(b) improve the way in which financial service providers or pension providers deal with complaints that are made against them, or
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(c) effectively deal with any other matter relating to promoting the interests of consumers and actual or potential beneficiaries of financial services or pensions.
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(6) A person who discloses information under or for the purposes of this section does not incur liability for defamation or other civil liability only because of the disclosure.
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(7) Nothing in this section affects an obligation or power to provide information in any other enactment.
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(8) Without prejudice to section 33AK of the Act of 1942, at the request of the Ombudsman, the Bank may validate any information provided to it by the Ombudsman under this section that is used to calculate the financial services industry levy in so far as such data to validate that information is available to the Bank.
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(9) The Ombudsman and a regulatory authority may enter into a memorandum of understanding setting out the terms under which they agree to give effect to any of the matters mentioned in subsections (2), (4) and (5)(a) to (c).
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