Part 2: Telecommunications Infrastructure Section 64: Compensation relating to code rights: Northern Ireland
This Section amends the 1996 Order by inserting Article 18B, which is designed to mirror the compensation provisions in paragraph 25 of the Code and ensure that site providers have the same rights to compensation where a subsisting agreement is renewed under the 1996 Order, as they would if it was renewed under the Code. It mirrors the provisions in section 63 above, which applies to England and Wales, to ensure that there is consistency across the United Kingdom. Under this provision site providers will be able to recover amounts for loss and damage which they have sustained or will sustain as a result of the operator exercising their Code rights.
	The provision also inserts a new Article 18C into the 1996 Order, which sets out the types of loss and damage that can be awarded to the site provider by the court and how those sums will be calculated. It also limits the amount which the site provider can recover, so that the amount cannot exceed the site provider’s losses.
	Although paragraph 25 of the Code and this Section only apply where the terms of the renewal agreement are imposed by the court, the existence of these provisions (which make provision as to what a court could do in the absence of an agreement) will be a relevant factor to be considered in consensual negotiations. In the same way that the court could, as a result of this Section, make provision as to compensation, the parties to a consensual agreement can also agree equivalent terms in an agreement reached on a consensual basis.