Trading with the Enemy Act 1939

8 Provisions with respect to money payable to, or received by, a Clearing Office under 24 and 25 Geo. 5. c. 31

(1) Nothing in this Act shall affect the operation of section one of the Debts Clearing Offices and Import Restrictions Act, 1934, or of any order under that section, in so far as the said section or order relates to the payment to, and collection by, a Clearing Office of debts to which such an order applies ; but—

(a) notwithstanding anything in subsection (6) of the said section or in any such order as aforesaid, any sum received by a Clearing Office by virtue of such an order, being—

(i) a sum which is so received at a time when the Sovereign Power of the country with respect to which the order has been made is at war with His Majesty, or

(ii) a sum which has been so received before the commencement of the war between that Power and His Majesty and has not, before the commencement of that war, ceased to be in the possession or under the control of the Clearing Office,

shall be retained by the Clearing Office, subject to any order which may be made under this Act requiring the Clearing Office to pay that sum to a custodian of enemy property, and subject to the provisions of subsections (4) and (6) of the said section with respect to overpayments made to the Clearing Office ; and

(b) any sum which a Clearing Office is required by paragraph (a) of this subsection to retain subject as aforesaid, shall, except in so far as it represents an overpayment made to the Clearing Office, be deemed for the purposes of this Act to be money which would, but for the existence of a state of war, be payable to or for the benefit of a person who is an enemy.

(2) There may be retained by a Clearing Office out of any sum which, by virtue of any order under this Act, is payable by that office to a custodian of enemy property such reasonable commission, not exceeding two per cent. of that sum, as the Treasury think fit; and the amount of any commission so retained by a Clearing Office shall be paid into the Exchequer' of the United Kingdom.