How will the UK ‘up the ante’ on financial sanctions enforcement?
January 18, 2016
As part of the 2015 summer budget, the UK Government announced that in April 2016 it will establish the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI). According to George Osborne, the OFSI will “provide a high quality service to the private sector, working closely with law enforcement to help ensure that financial sanctions are properly understood, implemented and enforced.”
The OFSI will be established within the Treasury to both make UK companies ‘better aware’ of sanctions and ‘work closely with law enforcement’ to ensure that sanctions are ‘properly enforced’.
With a large number of complex sanctions regimes in place, as well as the approaching “Adoption Day” for Iranian sanctions, will the new office provide better engagement and guidance to assist businesses?
Find out more about how OFSI could learn from the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the future of UK sanctions enforcement in our leaflet about “Learning from OFAC – OFSI and the future of UK sanctions enforcement”.
To what extent do you think that OFSI will be confined by the interpretational uncertainty of EU sanctions? Or will the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) take over sanctions guidance? Will we see a more aggressive sanctions regime? Share your thoughts below or schedule a meeting to discuss your thoughts in confidence.
