Part 5: Miscellaneous Chapter 3: Miscellaneous Section 326: Disclosing information overseas 243A - Overseas disclosures for both overseas and domestic purposes
New section 243A provides a gateway for a UK public authority to disclose specified information to an overseas public authority for the purposes of facilitating both its own functions and those of the overseas public authority.
	Subsection (1) provides that a UK public authority may make an overseas disclosure where this is intended to support both:
the delivery of any of its own statutory functions (subsection (1), paragraph (a)), including functions under any enactment in an Act of the Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland legislation or any subordinate legislation (as specified in subsection (3)), and
the delivery by the overseas public authority of any of its functions in connection with any criminal investigations or proceedings, or civil investigations or proceedings that relate to the enforcement of "relevant law" (subsection (1), paragraph (b)).
	Subsection (4) defines "any relevant law" to encompass a range of competition, consumer protection and other related matters. It includes disclosure for the purposes of overseas civil proceedings in connection with breaches of legislation, obligations or rules of law that are equivalent to those listed in Schedule 14 of the Act.
	Together subsection (1), paragraph (b) and subsection (4) are designed to ensure that specified information can be disclosed through this gateway where an overseas authority has criminal enforcement functions of any kind or civil enforcement functions aligned with those of UK authorities who enforce competition, digital competition or consumer law.
	Similar to the corresponding provision in the existing gateway under section 243 of Part 9 of the Enterprise Act 2002, subsection (2) of section 243A sets limits on disclosures. It prevents a UK public authority from disclosing to an overseas public authority:
information which is held by a person who is a private designated enforcer for the purposes of Chapter 3 of Part 3 of the Act,
certain commercially sensitive information including, for example, information in connection with market investigations under Part 4 of the Enterprise Act 2002,
information which comes to the public authority in connection with an investigation under section 11 of the Competition Act 1980, and
legacy information which is defined in subsection (5) and includes information in connection with undertakings and orders arising out of past monopoly and merger investigations under the Fair Trading Act 1973 and information held before 21st July 2021 in connection with merger investigations under Part 3 of the Enterprise Act 2002.