Article 7
1.—(1) Without prejudice to any other provision of this Order, or any provision of any other law, the Secretary of State or the Treasury may request any person in or resident in the United Kingdom to furnish to him or them any information in his possession or control, or to produce to him or them any document in his possession or control, which he or they may require for the purpose of securing compliance with or detecting evasion of this Order: and any person to whom such a request is made shall comply with it within such time and in such manner as may be specified in the request.
(2) Nothing in the foregoing sub-paragraph shall be taken to require any person who has acted as counsel or solicitor for any person to disclose any privileged communication made to him in that capacity.
(3) Where a person is convicted of failing to furnish information or produce a document when requested so to do under this paragraph, the court may make an order requiring him, within such period as may be specified in the order, to furnish the information or produce the document.
(4) The power conferred by this paragraph to request any person to produce documents shall include power to take copies of or extracts from any document so produced and to request that person, or, where that person is a body corporate, any other person who is a present or past officer of, or is employed by, the body corporate, to provide an explanation of any of them.
2. No information furnished or document produced (including any copy of, or extract from, any document produced) by any person in pursuance of a request made under this Schedule shall be disclosed except:
(a)with the consent of the person by whom the information was furnished or the document was produced or the person from whom the document was seized: provided that a person who has obtained information or is in possession of a document only in his capacity as servant or agent of another person may not give consent for the purposes of this sub-paragraph but such consent may instead be given by any person who is entitled to that information or to the possession of that document in his own right; or
(b)to any person who would have been empowered under this Schedule to request that it be furnished or produced or any person holding or acting in any office under or in the service of the Crown in respect of the Government of the United Kingdom; or
(c)on the authority of the Secretary of State, to any organ of the United Nations or to any person in the service of the United Nations or to the Government of any other country for the purpose of assisting the United Nations or that Government in securing compliance with or detecting evasion of measures in relation to Afghanistan decided upon by the Security Council of the United Nations; or
(d)with a view to the institution of, or otherwise for the purposes of, any proceedings for an offence under this Order.
3. Any person who—
(a)without reasonable excuse, refuses or fails within the time and in the manner specified (or, if no time has been specified, within a reasonable time) to comply with any request made under this Schedule by any person who is empowered to make it; or
(b)wilfully furnishes false information or a false explanation to any person exercising his powers under this Schedule; or
(c)with intent to evade the provisions of this Schedule, destroys, mutilates, defaces, secretes or removes any document,
shall be guilty of an offence under this Order.