Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI)

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The U.K.’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) started a new sanctions blog on 1 March.

In the About section, OFSI states “this blog will keep you informed about financial sanctions events, changes to our guidance and topical issues.”

This could prove to be a very useful resource for companies in light of OFSI’s new ability to impose monetary penalties under the Policing and Crime Act of 2017.

 

On February 5, the U.K.’s Chancellor of the Exchequer was asked the following:

“How many suspected breaches of financial sanctions were reported to the Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) in 2017; what the value was of those breaches; and how many investigations into breaches, by sanctions regime, have (a) been opened and (b) are ongoing since new powers to impose penalties under the Policing and Crime Act entered into force.”

Initially, the government reported 118 suspected breach cases worth £117 million had been reported to OFSI.

Now less than two weeks later they have revised the answer to 133 breach cases worth £1.4 billion.

Regarding the last question, the government said “as of April 2017, a total of 103 suspected breaches have been reported to OFSI since OFSI gained the ability to impose monetary penalties under the Policing and Crime Act 2017…”