Understanding why businesses get fined
All businesses must comply with sanctions laws. Failure to do so is a criminal offence. In recent weeks, new laws in the UK have made breaching sanctions rules a strict liability offence. This means there’s no requirement for the business to have intended to breach sanctions. The fact that it happened is enough for a monetary penalty to be levied.
The Policing and Crime Act 2017 gives the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), part of HM Treasury, the power to impose monetary penalties for sanctions breaches, and publish the reasons why.
Here, we review some recent cases to understand where these businesses went wrong with their sanctions compliance.
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