UK financial sanctions: new oversight, tougher penalties

The Summer Budget 2015 contained a commitment to significantly revamp the UK’s approach to the implementation and enforcement of financial sanctions, at both the administrative and legislative level. These changes are now beginning to be introduced, via creation of the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) within Her Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) and the proposed introduction of new financial sanctions legislation contained in the draft Policing and Crime Bill (the “Bill”). The Bill provides for an increase in the minimum criminal penalties applicable to breaches of financial sanctions, and introduces a new power for HMT to impose civil monetary penalties in certain circumstances. The Bill also provides for swifter implementation of UN financial sanctions in the UK. Susannah Cogman, Daniel Hudson and Andrew Cannon of Herbert Smith Freehills provide an overview of OFSI’s role, summarise the proposed changes to the UK financial sanctions regime and additional powers to be granted to OFSI under the Bill, and highlight key points in the updated financial sanctions guidance recently published by OFSI.