Licence assignments

Any transaction in which one or more companies enter a licence, and/or one or more companies withdraw from it, is referred to in this guidance as a “licence assignment”.

Licence assignments are prohibited unless they have the prior consent of the NSTA. We will consider any assignment made without prior consent as a very serious breach of the model clauses within every licence, and as grounds for immediate revocation of the licence or to reverse the assignment using powers granted in the Energy Act 2008 (s76). This applies equally to assignments between unaffiliated companies, to assignments between sister companies within a single company group, and to the withdrawal of a company from a licence.

Application procedure

The current licensee needs permission to complete the proposed licence assignment so it is usually the assignor that submits the application to the NSTA, even though in many cases much of the information the NSTA needs will come from the acquiring company. Consent will not be granted unless the NSTA has all required information.

Our estimated turn-around time for processing licence assignment applications is 30 working days subject to full and complete submissions, please note some complex case may require an extended duration.

Licence assignment consents and operator approvals are valid for three months; if completion is delayed beyond three months the consents will require re-issue. We will generally consider requests for consent re-issue on receipt of a revised 'Planned Completion Date' and confirmation that the details in the original application are still valid. The NSTA reserves the right to refuse a request for extra time in which case the applicant may be required to submit a new application.

For further information on re-issuing of consents please refer to the PEARS User Guidance.