Railways Act 1993

80 Duty of certain persons to furnish information to the Franchising Director on request

(1) Any of the following persons, that is to say—

(a) the Board,

(b) any wholly owned subsidiary of the Board, or

(c) any person who is the holder of a network licence or a station licence,

shall be under a duty to furnish to the Franchising Director in such form and manner as he may by notice request such information as he may so request, being information which the Franchising Director considers necessary for the purpose of facilitating the performance of any function of his under this Part.

(2) A request under subsection (1) above must be complied with within such time (being not less than 28 days from the making of the request) as may be specified in the request.

(3) If any such request is not complied with, the Franchising Director may serve a notice under subsection (4) below on the person from whom the information was requested under subsection (1) above.

(4) A notice under this subsection is a notice signed by the Franchising Director and—

(a) requiring the person on whom it is served to produce, at a time and place specified in the notice, to the Franchising Director or to any person appointed by the Franchising Director for the purpose, any documents which are specified or described in the notice and are in that person’s custody or under his control; or

(b) requiring that person to furnish, at a time and place and in the form and manner specified in the notice, to the Franchising Director such information as may be specified or described in the notice.

(5) No person shall be required under this section to produce any documents which he could not be compelled to produce in civil proceedings in the court or, in complying with any requirement for the furnishing of information, to give any information which he could not be compelled to give in evidence in any such proceedings.

(6) A person who without reasonable excuse fails to do anything required of him by notice under subsection (4) above is guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

(7) A person who intentionally alters, suppresses or destroys any document which he has been required by any notice under subsection (4) above to produce is guilty of an offence and shall be liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum;

(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine.

(8) If a person makes default in complying with a notice under subsection (4) above, the court may, on the application of the Franchising Director, make such order as the court thinks fit for requiring the default to be made good; and any such order may provide that all the costs or expenses of and incidental to the application shall be borne by the person in default or by any officers of a company or other association who are responsible for its default.

(9) Any reference in this section to the production of a document includes a reference to the production of a legible and intelligible copy of information recorded otherwise than in legible form; and the reference to suppressing a document includes a reference to destroying the means of reproducing information recorded otherwise than in legible form.

(10) In this section “the court” means the High Court, in relation to England and Wales, and the Court of Session, in relation to Scotland.