Digest of Benefit Entitlement Principles Chapter 18 - Section 11

18.11.0 Amendment: removing or reducing a penalty; removing a violation

The Commission has the discretionary authority to remove or reduce a penalty, or remove a violation under EIA 41, when the Commission believes:

• there are new facts that affect the decision; or
• the decision was made without knowledge of a material fact; or
• the decision was made on the basis of a mistake in material fact.

If the Commission removes a finding of misrepresentation from a file, it must ensure that any subsequent findings of misrepresentation and records of violation are amended. For example, removal of a penalty may require a second level misrepresentation be recalculated as a first level misrepresentation and the violation re-coded from subsequent to unclassified, minor, serious or very serious. This may affect previous applications for which a benefit period was not established due to the specific increased entrance requirements.

There are times when multiple investigations exist on a claimant's file. When possible, the second level adjudicator assesses all overpayments, the penalty and violation in one action. There are times when an adjudicator cannot complete the work in a single action. If the adjudicator receives an indication (new information, a request for reconsideration or an appeal) that there were adjudications that could have been completed at the same time, the adjudicator may reconsider the initial adjudications as one action and re-state the overpayments, penalty and violation based on that reconsideration.

[ September 2010 ]