Hallmarking (Amendment) Act 2019

Amendment of section 1 of Principal Act

2. Section 1 of the Principal Act is amended—

(a) by the insertion of the following definitions:

“ ‘authorised assay office’ means—

(a) an assay office situate outside the State established by the Company in accordance with section 4A, or

(b) an assay office situate outside the State that is party to an agreement with the Company under section 4B;

‘forged hallmark’ means a hallmark, stamp or other mark struck on or otherwise applied to an article of precious metal that—

(a) purports to be—

(i) an approved hallmark and is not an approved hallmark, or

(ii) a mark referred to in Regulation 3(d) of the Regulations of 2001 and is not such a mark,

or

(b) falsely represents the standard of fineness of the article of precious metal;

‘multi-metal article’ means an article comprised of 2 separate metals, one of which is precious metal or an alloy of precious metal, and the other of which is non-precious metal;

‘non-precious metal’ means any metal other than—

(a) gold, silver, palladium or platinum, or

(b) alloys of gold, silver, palladium or platinum;

‘offshore hallmark’ has the meaning assigned to it by section 2(1)(aa);

‘precious metal’ means gold, silver, palladium or platinum;

‘Regulations of 2001’ means the European Communities (Hallmarking of Articles Imported from Other Member States) Regulations 2001 (No. 579 of 2001);”,

(b) in the definition of “articles of precious metal”, by the substitution of “a single precious metal or alloy of precious metal or 2 or more separate precious metals or alloys of precious metal” for “gold, silver or platinum or alloys of gold, silver or platinum”, and

(c) by the deletion of the definitions of “the Act of 1913” and “forgery”.