49ASending thing out of New Zealand

1. The Attorney-General may direct the Commissioner under section 49 to arrange for the thing—

2. to be transferred to the custody of the Attorney-General, or of any other person specified in the direction, for sending to an appropriate authority of a foreign country; or
3. to be sent to an appropriate authority of a foreign country.

4. However, the thing may be sent out of New Zealand only if—

5. one of the following applies:
   1. the Attorney-General has given written notice to each notifiable person of the Attorney-General’s intention to give a direction that would result in the thing being sent out of New Zealand and has provided a copy of that notice to the Commissioner:
   2. the Attorney-General is satisfied that the notifiable person is deceased, or that all reasonable steps have been taken to identify or contact the person but the person cannot be identified or contacted:
   3. a Judge has dispensed with the obligation to give written notice to the notifiable person under section 49B; and
6. any proceeding in New Zealand that is commenced by a notifiable person and relates to the search warrant, production order, or the proposed direction has been finally disposed of; and
7. the foreign country has given undertakings about any matter that the Attorney-General considers appropriate.

8. Subsection (2)(b) does not prevent the thing from being sent out of New Zealand with the agreement of the notifiable person referred to in that provision.

9. A notice that is required to be given under this section to a notifiable person must be given at least 10 working days before a direction of a kind referred to in subsection (1) is given.

10. The notice must inform the notifiable person of each of the following:

11. the terms of the proposed direction (but only to the extent that it relates to the thing):
12. the date on which the Attorney-General proposes to give the direction:
13. that the notice is given for the purposes of subsection (2)(a):
14. the effect of subsections (2) and (3):
15. any specific or general arrangements that may apply to the return, disposal, destruction, or forfeiture of the thing:
16. a physical or an electronic address that the notifiable person may use for inquiries or other communications about the notice and proposed direction.

17. Section 181 of the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 applies to the giving of a notice for the purposes of this section in the same way as it applies to the giving of a notice for the purposes of that Act.

18. In this section, notifiable person, in relation to a thing, means—

19. any person who has been identified in connection with the request under section 43 as someone who it is suspected has committed or will commit the offence concerned; or
20. in the case of a thing that was seized under a search warrant,—
    1. the person who appears to the Attorney-General to be the owner of the thing; or
    2. the person who possessed the thing immediately before it was seized under a search warrant; or
    3. the occupier of the place, or the person in charge of the vehicle or other thing, from which the seizure took place; or
21. in the case of a thing that was produced under a production order and contains information about an identifiable individual, that individual (but only if the central purpose of the production order was to obtain information about that individual); or
22. any other person who the Attorney-General is satisfied there are reasonable grounds to suspect has committed or will commit the offence concerned.