New South Wales Consolidated Acts

TOTALIZATOR ACT 1997 - SECT 34

34 Power to require information relating to entitlement to shares in licensee

(1) The Minister, or a director or the secretary of a licensee, may, by notice in writing served on a person who is, or is suspected by the Minister, director or secretary, as the case may be, of being entitled to shares in the licensee, require the person to furnish information specified in the notice for the purpose of determining whether that person or any other person has, or is taking action to acquire, a prohibited shareholding interest in the licensee.

(2) A notice under subsection (1) may require the person on whom the notice is served, or, if that person is a corporation, 2 directors of the corporation, to verify by statutory declaration any information furnished in compliance with the notice.

(3) If--

(a) a person on whom a notice under subsection (1) has been served fails to furnish, within the period required by the notice, the information required by the notice, verified as required by the notice, or

(b) information furnished by the person in response to the notice is, in the opinion of the Minister, by reason of anything included in it or omitted from it, false or misleading in a material particular,

the Minister may, by reason only of that fact, by notice in writing served on the licensee concerned, do one or more of the following--

(c) declare that the person is an associate of another, or that another is an associate of that person,

(d) declare that the person, or another to whom a declaration under paragraph (c) relates, is entitled to specified shares in the licensee concerned,

(e) declare that the person, or another to whom a declaration under paragraph (c) relates, has a prohibited shareholding interest in the licensee concerned.

(3A) A declaration under subsection (3) has effect according to its tenor for the purposes of this Division.

(4) If notice of a declaration under subsection (3) is served on a licensee, the Minister must, at the same time or as soon as practicable thereafter, cause written notice of the declaration to be served--

(a) on the person to whom the declaration relates, and

(b) in the case of a declaration under paragraph (e) of that subsection--on the holder of the shares to which the declaration relates.

(5) A person who fails to comply with a requirement of a notice under this section, or in purported compliance with such a requirement furnishes information that is false or misleading in a material particular, is guilty of an offence.

: Maximum penalty--100 penalty units.

(6) It is a defence to a prosecution of a person for an offence under subsection (5) if it is proved that, at the time the information was furnished, the person believed, on reasonable grounds--

(a) in the case of false information--that the information was true, or

(b) in the case of misleading information--that the information was not misleading.

(7) A person is not liable to be convicted of both an offence under subsection (5) and an offence under Chapter 4 (Perjury, false statements etc) of Part 7 of the Crimes Act 1900 in respect of the same incident. Section 112 (False or misleading information) does not apply to the furnishing of information under this section.