Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012

36 Misrepresentation

(1) This section applies where a person—

(a) intentionally fails to comply with a requirement imposed by or under this Part to provide documents or information, or

(b) in providing documents or information in accordance with such a requirement, makes a statement or representation knowing or believing it to be false.

(2) The person is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.

(3) Proceedings in respect of an offence under this section may (despite anything in the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980) be brought at any time within the period of 6 months beginning with the date on which evidence sufficient in the opinion of the prosecutor to justify a prosecution comes to the prosecutor’s knowledge.

(4) Subsection (3) does not authorise the commencement of proceedings for an offence more than 2 years after the date on which the offence was committed.

(5) A county court is to have jurisdiction to hear and determine an action brought by the Lord Chancellor to recover loss sustained by reason of—

(a) the failure by a person to comply with a requirement imposed by or under this Part to provide documents or information, or

(b) a false statement or false representation made by a person in providing documents or information in accordance with such a requirement.