Central Bank Act, 1989.

Chapter X

Codes of Practice

Codes of practice.

117.—(1) The Bank may, after consultation with the Minister, from time to time draw up, amend or revoke, in relation to any class or classes of licence holders or other persons supervised by the Bank under this or any other enactment, one or more than one code of practice concerning dealings with any class or classes of persons and every such code shall be observed by the licence holders, or other persons so supervised, to whom they relate.

(2) In drawing up codes of practice the Bank shall have regard to—

(a) the interest of customers and the general public, and

(b) the promotion of fair competition in financial markets in the State.

(3) The Bank may—

(a) require any licence holder or other person supervised by it to provide all relevant information to the Bank to enable the Bank to satisfy itself as to compliance with the code by such licence holder or other person,

(b) issue a direction in writing to such licence holder or other person to comply with practices specified in the direction where this is necessary, in the opinion of the Bank, to secure observance of the code.

(4) (a) Any licence holder or other person supervised by the Bank who fails to provide information in accordance with subsection (3) (a) or to comply with a direction under subsection (3) (b) shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable—

(i) on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £1,000, or

(ii) on conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding £25,000.

(b) Where a person has been convicted of an offence by virtue of paragraph (a) of this subsection and, after the conviction, the failure to provide information or to comply with the direction, as the case may be, continues, the person shall be guilty of contravening this section on every day on which the contravention continues after that conviction and for each such offence he shall be liable—

(i) on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £100, or

(ii) on conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding £2,500.

(5) In this section “practices” includes procedures.