Sale of Nt Tab Act 2000

This Act may be cited as the Sale of NT TAB Act 2000.

The provisions of this Act come into operation on the date, or respective dates, fixed by the Administrator by notice in the

Gazette.

A notice under subsection (1) may, if the notice provides, have retrospective effect.

This Act expires on the date fixed by the Administrator by notice in the Gazette.

This Act binds the Crown not only in right of the Northern Territory but, to the extent that the legislative power of the Legislative Assembly permits, the Crown in all its other capacities.

In this Act, unless the contrary intention appears:

NT TAB means the business or any component of the business of conducting betting by means of a totalisator system known as the NT TAB and administered by the Commission and includes the arrangements entered into and the assets and related facilities used by the Commission in administering the business.

purchaser means a person with whom the Minister engages in negotiations or enters into an agreement for the sale and purchase of the NT TAB.

The Minister may, on behalf of the Territory, sell the business and the assets that comprise the NT TAB.

For the purposes of effecting the sale of the NT TAB, the Minister may engage in negotiations and enter into agreements.

The Minister and the Commission have power to do all things necessary and convenient to be done for or incidental to the proper conduct of the sale of the NT TAB.

In the course of negotiating the sale of the NT TAB, the Minister and the Commission may communicate, disclose or divulge, including by the production of a document or the provision of a copy of or extract from a document, details of the contracts and other arrangements entered into by the Commission, the accounts and financial records and records relating to financial transactions of and assets and other facilities used in and any other information that explains the operations of the NT TAB to a purchaser or a person authorised to act for and on behalf of the purchaser.

The Minister may authorise discussions on information communicated, disclosed or divulged under subsection (1) between a purchaser or a person authorised by the Minister to act for and on behalf of the purchaser and a person or a person nominated by the Minister to represent the person with whom the Commission has entered into an agreement or other arrangement for the purpose of the conduct of the business of the NT TAB.

The Minister may impose conditions on his or her authorisation under subsection (2) and the persons discussing the information must comply with those conditions.

A person to whom information is communicated, disclosed or divulged under subsection (1) or because of discussions authorised under subsection (2) must not communicate, disclose or divulge that information to another person unless in the course of deliberating and negotiating an offer to purchase the NT TAB and any prospective agreement for the sale and purchase of the NT TAB.

The Minister or a member of the Commission must not communicate, disclose or divulge information received from a purchaser in the course of negotiations for the sale of the NT TAB to another person except in the course of deliberating any offer from or prospective agreement with the purchaser or consideration of the sale of the NT TAB by the Territory Cabinet a committee of the Territory Cabinet.

Maximum penalty: 200 penalty units or imprisonment for 12 months.

Nothing in this Act relieves the purchaser from liability to pay Territory taxes, rates and duties in respect of the purchase of the NT TAB and the purchaser's subsequent conduct of the business purchased.

Before the sale of the NT TAB is completed, the authority, within the meaning of the Totalisator Licensing and Regulation Act

2000, must grant under that Act a totalisator licence to the purchaser authorising the purchaser to conduct the business purchased.

Sections 14 to 19 (inclusive) and section 20(1), (2) and (4) of the Totalisator Licensing and Regulation Act 2000 do not apply in relation to the grant of the totalisator licence to the purchaser.

The totalisator licence granted to the purchaser is to take effect on the completion of the sale of the NT TAB.

On the sale of the NT TAB, the Territory remains liable for:

the payment of all outstanding fees, taxes and charges payable in relation to the operations of the NT TAB before the sale;

the payment of any dividends or other payments or prizes that are unclaimed from or unpaid by the Commission at the time of the sale;

any other liability incurred by or obligation imposed on the Commission in administering the NT TAB before the sale; and

an act or omission done, caused, permitted or made by or on behalf of the Commission in administering the NT TAB before the sale.

Any term of an agreement for the sale and purchase of the NT TAB that is inconsistent with subsection (1) has no effect.

No action or proceeding, civil or criminal, lies against the Minister or a member of the Commission for or in respect of an act or thing done or omitted to be done in good faith by the Minister or the member under this Act.

The Acts specified in the Schedule are repealed.

If, on the repeal of the Acts specified in the Schedule, the NT

TAB has not been sold and a totalisator licence has not been granted to the purchaser of the NT TAB, the Commission must continue to administer the NT TAB until the NT TAB is sold and the totalisator licence is granted in the same manner as if those Acts were not repealed.

For the purposes of subsection (1), the Commission is to be taken to have the same powers and functions and liabilities and obligations that it would have had under the Totalizator

Administration and Betting Act 1985 as in force immediately before the repeal of those Acts and as if those Acts were not repealed.