Explanatory note

The purpose of this Order is to make the general administrative and financial provisions necessary to enable the Foreign Compensation Commission to operate. Certain matters which are particular to the Yugoslav and Czechoslovak series of claims are dealt with in the Foreign Compensation (Yugoslavia) Order in Council, 1950^f1, and the Foreign Compensation (Czechoslovakia) Order in Council, 1950^f2. Thus, while the present Order provides that two members of the Commission shall constitute a quorum for the conduct of its business in general, each of the other two Orders requires not less than three members for the determination of applications under those Orders. Provisions relating to the management and investment of the Yugoslav and Czechoslovak Funds, i.e. moneys received under the compensation agreements with Yugoslavia^f3 and Czechoslovakia^f4 are also made in the Foreign Compensation (Yugoslavia) Order in Council, 1950, and the Foreign Compensation (Czechoslovakia) Order in Council, 1950.

The present Order provides for the staff of the Commission, but provisions for the appointment of members of the Commission itself are made by Section 1 of the Act. The staff will include a Secretary who will be responsible to the Commission for the administrative work relating to claims and a Legal Officer whose duty it will be to represent the interests of the Funds (or in other words of the general body of claimants) and therefore to submit to the Commission when necessary arguments showing in what an individual claimant has failed fully to prove his claim.

This Order makes no provision under Section 7 (2) of the Act for the payment out of the sums of money received from Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia of expenses attributable to the discharge by the Commission of its functions in relation to the distribution of those sums. It is intended, however, to make any necessary Order when the expenses properly attributable to the determination of each series of claims can, in fact, be calculated.