UK accused of being ‘toothless’ in sanctions enforcement
The UK government has been criticised for its “toothless” use of the sanctions regime, as campaigners raised concerns that the enforcement body set up in 2016 to patrol breaches has only ever issued only six fines worth a combined £21m.
As the government announces a fresh wave of sanctions against Russia after the invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, opposition politicians and campaigners warned that the UK’s failure to take action against existing suspected breaches of sanctions “undermines any real deterrent value that UK sanctions could have”.
The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), set up in 2016 by then chancellor George Osborne to act as a “centre of excellence for financial sanctions”, handed down just one fine in the year to the end of March 2021 despite investigating 132 suspected breaches.
By comparison, the US authorities issued 87 fines worth more than $1.5bn (£1.1bn) in a single year.
Susan Hawley, executive director of campaign group Spotlight on Corruption, said: “The OFSI’s very low enforcement rate and the very low average fine level make OFSI look pretty toothless, and undermine any real deterrent value that UK sanctions could have.
“The OFSI lacks the kind of aggressive and proactive attitude to enforcement that would make the UK’s financial, accounting and legal sectors really sit up and take sanctions breaches seriously.”
She warned that the lack of any criminal enforcement action over sanction breaches raises “real questions as to whether UK sanctions are actually be enforced properly at all”.
Hawley highlighted the UK’s failure to act when a private jet targeted by sanctions against Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s autocratic leader and ally of Putin, landed at Luton airport earlier this year.
Read more on theguardian.com
