The Disputes and Sanctions Team sits within the NSTA's Regulation Directorate to address disputes between relevant persons and compliance with regulatory obligations.
The NSTA separates 'issues', where the NSTA seeks primarily to influence the outcome, from 'cases', where the NSTA will consider formal intervention with regulatory powers, and has developed a process of measured escalation to track and transition issues and cases. Detail of the measured escalation process can be found here.
The current case register can be viewed here.
NSTA Regulatory Approach
“The NSTA expects regulatory compliance. Some licensees do this voluntarily, others require assistance, direction, (such as through Facilitation or Enhanced Facilitation) or in more serious cases, enforcement action to achieve this.
The Disputes and Sanctions (D&S) Team sits within the NSTA's Regulation Directorate to address disputes between relevant persons and compliance with regulatory obligations.
Matters are often referred to the D&S Team from other teams within the NSTA. Depending on the nature of the issue, some teams will follow a measured escalation process before referring it to the D&S Team; details of the measured escalation process can be found here.
Other matters might involve a potential breach that has already taken place. In such instances, the issue can be referred directly to the D&S Team to consider once the potential breach has been identified.
When a matter is passed to the D&S Team, via any method, the team will carry out an Initial Assessment to decide the next steps.”
When considering whether or not to take action using formal powers the NSTA will review that issue alongside its prioritisation criteria which can be found here.
There are various potential outcomes the NSTA can pursue after conducting an Initial Assessment. A summary of the options can be found here.
One outcome is opening a sanctions Investigation. Where the NSTA opens an Investigation, the NSTA will publish brief details of the existence of that Investigation. The NSTA will not generally name the parties who are the subject of the Investigation at that stage, unless the NSTA considers it would be in the public interest to do so.
The NSTA may publish details of any Sanction Notice issued (including the identity of the parties subject to the sanction) subject to the condition that the NSTA may not publish anything that, in the NSTA’s opinion, is commercially sensitive, not in the public interest to publish or is otherwise not appropriate for publication.
The NSTA have published a range of guidance.
Guidance on Disputes over Third Party Access to Upstream Oil and Gas Infrastructure
On 17 May 2022, Tom Wheeler, the NSTA's then Director of Regulation (now Director of Operations), wrote to offshore licensees highlighting that the NSTA will launch a consultation intended to inform guidance setting out how the NSTA expects co-venturers to approach M&A transactions and what conditions co-venturers can reasonably put on their consent to transactions. The letter can be viewed here.
May 2023 update: The NSTA is undertaking the consultation on its proposal to issue NSTA Guidance on the conduct of licence assignments - further details can be viewed here.
