Section 1 Exclusion of participation agreements from Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1976.

If it appears to the Secretary of State that an agreement (whether entered into before or after the commencement of this Act) is a participation agreement to which this section should apply he may certify the agreement as one to which this section applies.

The M1Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1976 shall not apply, and neither that Act nor the M2Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1956 shall be deemed ever to have applied, to an agreement certified by the Secretary of State as one to which this section applies.

In this Act “participation agreement” means an agreement entered into by the Secretary of State, the British National Oil Corporation or a wholly owned subsidiary of the Corporation which either is, or supplements, an agreement entered into with a view to securing participation—

in activities connected with petroleum F1existing in its natural condition in strata in the United Kingdom or beneath waters which form part of the territorial sea adjacent to the United Kingdom or are in a designated area within the meaning of the M3Continental Shelf Act 1964; but does not include any agreement relating to dealings by the British National Oil Corporation or any of its wholly owned subsidiaries in any substance other than petroleum and petroleum products.

F2Section 736 of the Companies Act 1985 or, as the case may be, F3Article 4 of the Companies (Northern Ireland) Order 1986 shall apply for determining for the purposes of this section whether a company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the British National Oil Corporation.

Where the Secretary of State certifies an agreement as one to which this section applies he shall lay before Parliament a statement giving the date of the certificate, the date of the agreement and the parties to the agreement.

In this Act—

• “agreement” has the same meaning as in the M4Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1976,

• “petroleum” has the same meaning as, by virtue of section 16(1) of the M5Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Act 1975, it has in Part I of that Act, and

• “petrolum products” has the same meaning as in section 21 of the M6Energy Act 1976.