John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)

It does apply to electronic documents held outside the jurisdiction. I will come back to the Deputy with regard to cloud computing. Given the significant developments in the area of technology and computing the current 14 day deadline for returning copies of documents required under the Competition Act is increasingly difficult to meet. The proposal to extend it to 35 days will be very practical and certainly will add real benefits to the Competition Authority which will assist in fighting anti-competitive behaviour and reflects the Government's desire to tackle white-collar crime. This change will not apply retrospectively to any documents from before the Bill. People are storing documentation on cloud and I will come back to the Deputy with regard to this.

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