The Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders (United States of America) Order 1995

Payment of sums due under orders made in specified State; conversion of currency.

16.—(1) Payment of sums due under a registered order shall, while the order is registered in a court in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, be made in such manner and to such person as may be prescribed.

(2) Where the sums required to be paid under a registered order are expressed in a currency other than the currency of the United Kingdom, then, as from the relevant date, the order shall be treated as if it were an order requiring the payment of such sums in the currency of the United Kingdom as, on the basis of the rate of exchange prevailing at that date, are equivalent to the sums so required to be paid.

(3) Where the sum specified in any statement, being a statement of the amount of any arrears due under a maintenance order made by a court in a specified State, is expressed in a currency other than the currency of the United Kingdom, that sum shall be deemed to be such sum in the currency of the United Kingdom as, on the basis of the rate of exchange prevailing at the relevant date, is equivalent to the sum so specified.

(4) For the purposes of this section a written certificate purporting to be signed by an officer of any bank in the United Kingdom certifying that a specified rate of exchange prevailed between currencies at a specified date and that at such rate a specified sum in the currency of the United Kingdom is equivalent to a specified sum in another specified currency shall be evidence of the rate of exchange so prevailing on that date and of the equivalent sums in terms of the respective currencies.

(5) In this section “the relevant date” means—

(a) in relation to a registered order or to a statement of arrears due under a maintenance order made by a court in a specified State, the date on which the order first becomes a registered order;

(b) in relation to a registered order which has been varied, the date on which the last order varying that order is registered in the registering court.

(6) In the application of this section to Scotland—

(a) subsection (1) shall not apply; and

(b) in subsection (4), for the word “evidence” there shall be substituted the words “sufficient evidence”.