Section 26: Confidentiality

26. Confidentiality (1) Every Director, every officer or employee of the Bank or any person appointed by the Bank pursuant to the banking laws shall— (a) in the case of a Director or head of department, take an oath of confidentiality in the form set out in the Second Schedule; and (b) in any other case, make a declaration of confidentiality before the Chairperson of the Board in the form set out in the Third Schedule, before he begins to perform any duties under the banking laws. (2) Except— (a) for the purposes of— (i) the performance of his duties or the exercise of his functions under the banking laws; or (ii) meeting the requirements of an agreement or understanding reached by the Bank with any other relevant supervisory body; or (b) when lawfully required to do so— (i) by an order of a Judge in Chambers or any Court of law; or (ii) under any enactment, no person referred to in subsection (1) shall, during and after his relationship with the Bank, disclose directly or indirectly to any person any information relating to the affairs of the Bank, of any other bank or financial institution or of any of its customers, which he has acquired in the performance of his duties or the exercise of his functions. (3) Any person who contravenes this section shall commit an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding one million rupees and to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years. B2 – 15 [Issue 9] Bank of Mauritius Act (4) Nothing in this section shall preclude— (a) the exchange or disclosure of any information, under conditions of confidentiality, between the Bank and any public sector agency or law enforcement agency, where the Bank is satisfied that the public sector agency or law enforcement agency has the capacity to protect the confidentiality of the information imparted, or between the Bank and any other foreign regulatory agency performing functions similar to those of the Bank under this Act, pursuant to any existing or future treaty, or agreement or memorandum of understanding entered into by the Bank or the State of Mauritius; (aa) the disclosure by the Bank to the Financial Services Commission established under the Financial Services Act of such information as may be required by the Commission for the purposes of assisting it in the discharge of its functions; (b) the disclosure of any information pursuant to an order made by the Judge in Chambers under section 6 of the Mutual Assistance in Criminal and Related Matters Act; (c) the disclosure of any information to the Financial Intelligence Unit pursuant to section 22 of the Financial Intelligence and Anti-Money Laundering Act; or (d) the disclosure of any information or data by the Bank to Statistics Mauritius to enable the Director of Statistics to discharge, or assist him in discharging, any of his functions under the Statistics Act. [S. 26 amended by s. 97 (2) of Act 14 of 2007 w.e.f. 28 September 2007; s. 3 (a) of Act 18 of 2008 w.e.f. 19 July 2008; s. 3 (a) of Act 20 of 2011 w.e.f. 31 August 2011; s. 3 (b) of Act 38 of 2011 w.e.f. 15 December 2011.]