Water Act 2014

44 Eligible licensees

(1) Exit regulations may—

(a) make provision for a relevant undertaker to specify in its exit application the eligible licensee or licensees to which it proposes to transfer a part of its undertaking;

(b) make provision for the WSRA to direct one or more eligible licensees to accept the transfer of a part of the relevant undertaker’s undertaking.

(2) In this Chapter an “eligible licensee” is a company—

(a) that has a water supply licence with a retail authorisation or a sewerage licence with a retail authorisation, or both, and

(b) that has elected to be an eligible licensee for the purposes of this Chapter.

(3) Exit regulations may—

(a) provide for an eligible licensee to be specified in an exit application only if the licensee agrees to be so specified;

(b) provide for the WSRA to give notice before giving a direction under subsection (1)(b);

(c) provide for an eligible licensee to temporarily suspend an election under subsection (2)(b) so that it may not be given a direction under subsection (1)(b).

(4) Exit regulations may make provision about electing to be an eligible licensee, and may in particular—

(a) provide for a company to satisfy such criteria as are set out in a code published by the WSRA before the company may elect to be an eligible licensee;

(b) provide for the WSRA to assess whether a company satisfies those criteria;

(c) provide for the WSRA to publish a code setting out—

(i) the criteria mentioned in paragraph (a), and

(ii) how it conducts such assessments;

(d) provide for the WSRA to comply with the code in making such assessments.

(5) Exit regulations may—

(a) allow an eligible licensee, to which a transfer of a part of a relevant undertaker’s undertaking is proposed to be made, to be a company associated with the undertaker,

(b) require the eligible licensee to which such a transfer is made to be such a company, or

(c) prohibit such a transfer being made to such a company.

(6) For the purposes of this section, a relevant undertaker is associated with an eligible licensee if one of them is a subsidiary of the other or both are subsidiaries of the same body corporate.