No prosecution for an offence under this Act shall be commenced after the expiration of three years from the commission of the offence or one year from its discovery by the prosecutor, whichever is the earlier.

Notwithstanding anything in F4section 127(1) of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, a magistrates’ court may try an information for an offence under this Act if the information was laid within twelve months from the commission of the offence.

Notwithstanding anything in F5section 136 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, summary proceedings in Scotland for an offence under this Act may be commenced within twelve months from the commission of the offence, and F5subsection (3) of the said section 136 shall apply for the purposes of this subsection as it applies for the purposes of that section.

In the application of this section to Northern Ireland, for the references in subsection (2) to F6section 127(1) of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 and to the trial and laying of an information there shall be substituted respectively references to F7Article 19(1) of the Magistrates’ Courts (Northern Ireland) Order 1981 and to the hearing and determination and making of a complaint F8and as if in that subsection for the words “an offence under this Act” there were substituted the words “an offence under section 30(1) F43... of this Act”.

Where an offence under F46... F44... F38... F9section 93B or Part XI of this Act, which has been committed by a body corporate, is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or any person who was purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence and be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

Where the affairs of a body corporate are managed by its members, subsection (1) of this section shall apply in relation to the acts and defaults of a member in connection with his functions of management as if he were a director of the body corporate.

Any statutory instrument whereby any order is made under any of the preceding provisions of this Act, other than a provision which requires a draft of the order to be laid before Parliament before making the order, or whereby any regulations are made under this Act, shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.

Any power conferred by any provision of this Act to make an order by statutory instrument shall include power to revoke or vary the order by a subsequent order made under that provision.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F14

In this Act—

• “the Act of 1948” means the M3Monopolies and Restrictive Practices (Inquiry and Control) Act 1948; F16

• F17...

• F18...

• “the Act of 1965” means the M4Monopolies and Mergers Act 1965;

• F19...

• F39...

• “contract of employment” means a contract of service or of apprenticeship, whether it is express or implied, and (if it is express) whether it is oral or in writing;

• “scale” (where the reference is to the scale on which any services are, or are to be, made available, supplied or obtained) means scale measured in terms of money or money’s worth or in any other manner.

Except in so far as the context otherwise requires, in this Act, . . . F20 the following expressions have the meanings hereby assigned to them respectively, that is to say—

• F36“the Advisory Committee” means the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee;

• “agreement” means any agreement or arrangement, in whatever way and in whatever form it is made, and whether it is, or is intended to be, legally enforceable or not;

• “business” includes a professional practice and includes any other undertaking which is carried on for gain or reward or which is an undertaking in the course of which goods or services are supplied otherwise than free of charge;

• F40...

• F48...

• F40...

• “consumer” (subject to subsection (6) of this section) means any person who is either—

  1. a

     a person to whom goods are or are sought to be supplied (whether by way of sale or otherwise) in the course of a business carried on by the person supplying or seeking to supply them, or

  2. b

     a person for whom services are or are sought to be supplied in the course of a business carried on by the person supplying or seeking to supply them,

  and who does not receive or seek to receive the goods or services in the course of a business carried on by him;

• F36“the Director” means the Director General of Fair Trading;

• “enactment” includes an enactment of the Parliament of Northern Ireland;

• “goods” includes buildings and other structures, and also includes ships, aircraft and hovercraft, . . . F21;

• F40...

• F40...

• “merger situation qualifying for investigation” has the meaning assigned to it by section 64(8) of this Act;

• “Minister” includes a government department but shall not by virtue of this provision be taken to include the F49Competition and Markets Authority, and, except where the contrary is expressly provided, does not include any F22Northern Ireland department;

• F40...

• F40...

• “practice” means any practice, whether adopted in pursuance of an agreement or otherwise;

• F40...

• F40...

• “supply”, in relation to the supply of goods, includes supply by way of sale, lease, hire or hire-purchase, and, in relation to buildings or other structures, includes the construction of them by a person for another person;

• F40...

• F40...

No order under subsection (3A) above is to be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.

The provisions of Schedule 9 to this Act apply in the case of a draft of any such order as they apply in the case of a draft of an order to which section 91(1) above applies.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For the purposes of the provisions of this Act . . . F20, any two bodies corporate are to be treated as interconnected if one of them is a body corporate of which the other is a subsidiary (within the meaning of F47section 1159 of the Companies Act 2006) or if both of them are subsidiaries (within the meaning of that section) of one and the same body corporate; and in those provisions “interconnected bodies corporate” shall be construed accordingly, and “group of interconnected bodies corporate” means a group consisting of two or more bodies corporate all of whom are interconnected with each other.

For the purposes of the application of any provision of this Act in relation to goods or services of a particular description or to which a particular practice applies, “consumers” means persons who are consumers (as defined by subsection (2) of this section) in relation to goods or services of that description or in relation to goods or services to which that practice applies.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Except in so far as the context otherwise requires, any reference in this Act to an enactment shall be construed as a reference to that enactment as amended or extended by or under any other enactment, including this Act.

This section applies to the following provisions of this Act, that is to say, section 2(4), F45... section 137(6), and the definition of “consumer” contained in section 137(2).

For the purposes of any provisions to which this section applies it is immaterial whether any person supplying goods or services has a place of business in the United Kingdom or not.

For the purposes of any provisions to which this section applies any goods or services supplied wholly or partly outside the United Kingdom, if they are supplied in accordance with arrangements made in the United Kingdom, whether made orally or by one or more documents delivered in the United Kingdom or by correspondence posted from and to addresses in the United Kingdom, shall be treated as goods supplied to, or services supplied for, persons in the United Kingdom.

In relation to the supply of goods under a hire-purchase agreement, a credit-sale agreement or a conditional sale agreement, the person conducting any antecedent negotiations, as well as the owner or seller, shall for the purposes of any provisions to which this section applies be treated as a person supplying or seeking to supply the goods.

In subsection (4) of this section, the following expressions have the meanings given by, or referred to in, section 189 of the M6Consumer Credit Act 1974—

• “antecedent negotiations”,

• “conditional sale agreement”,

• “credit-sale agreement”,

• “hire-purchase agreement”.

For the purposes of any provisions to which this section applies goods or services supplied by a person carrying on a business shall be taken to be supplied in the course of that business if payment for the supply of the goods or services is made or (whether under a contract or by virtue of an enactment or otherwise) is required to be made.

The provisions of Schedule 11 to this Act shall have effect for the purposes of this Act.

This Act may be cited as the Fair Trading Act 1973.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Where any provision of this Act, other than a provision contained in Schedule 11, refers to the commencement of this Act, it shall be construed as referring to the day appointed under this section for the coming into operation of that provision.

This Act extends to Northern Ireland.