12   Inspection and copies of documents

(1)  The commission may inspect any documents or other things produced before it, and may retain them for such reasonable period as it thinks fit, and, in the case of documents produced before it, may make copies of such matter as is relevant to the inquiry or take extracts from them.

(2)  The commission may employ such assistance as it deems proper for the carrying out of any inquiry or investigation, and may by writing authorise any person so employed to inspect and report to it upon any documents or other things, or (without affecting the generality of the foregoing) any accounts, it considers relevant to the subject matter of the inquiry.

(3)  When the retention of a document or other thing ceases to be reasonably necessary for the purposes of the inquiry to which it relates, the commission is required, if a person who appears to the commission to be entitled to the document or other thing so requests, to cause it to be delivered to that person.

(4)  The requirement under subsection (3) does not apply if the commission has furnished the document or other thing or proposes to furnish it to a person or body referred to in section 12A or the commission deals with it or proposes to deal with it otherwise according to law.