(1)This section applies to the following amounts—
(a)any amount payable to OFCOM under a Broadcasting Act licence;
(b)the amount of a penalty imposed by OFCOM under Part 1 or 3 of the 1990 Act, Part 1 or 2 of the 1996 Act or this Part of this Act.
(2)Every amount to which this section applies shall be recoverable by OFCOM as a debt due to them from the person obliged to pay it.
(3)The following liabilities—
(a)a person’s liability to have a penalty imposed on him under Part 1 or 3 of the 1990 Act, Part 1 or 2 of the 1996 Act or this Part in respect of acts or omissions of his occurring while he was the holder of a Broadcasting Act licence, and
(b)a liability of a person as the holder of such a licence to pay an amount to which this section applies,
are not affected by that person’s Broadcasting Act licence having ceased (for any reason) to be in force before the imposition of the penalty or the payment of that amount.
Cases considering section 346 3
[2023] EWCA Civ 843 · 14 July 2023
A licence holder’s liability to receive and pay an Ofcom penalty survives termination of its licence. Licence revocation therefore did not remove Ofcom’s power to impose the penalty and was consistent with maintaining it for general deterrence. (see paras [26]; [30])
[2025] EWHC 2816 (KB) · 30 October 2025
Confirms that a penalty is recoverable as a civil debt; this supplied the basis for Ofcom’s claim (see paras [5]-[6]).
Confirms that liability to pay a penalty survives revocation of the licence (see paras [5], [45]).
[2022] EWHC 3136 (Admin) · 8 December 2022Limits
Preserves OFCOM’s power to impose and enforce a penalty after termination of a licence. It does not create a free-standing obligation to maintain the preliminary penalty or itself engage section 6(2)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998 (see paras [26], [31]-[32]).
What each judgment says about section 346 is in the case-law panel in the full Act.
714.Where a payment of a kind listed in subsection (1) is payable to OFCOM, it is recoverable by them as a debt due from the person who must pay it. Those payments include amounts paid under licences granted under the Broadcasting Acts 1990 and 1996 and penalties imposed by OFCOM under those Acts.