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The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) has today launched a consultation on its proposed approach to imposing monetary penalties.
The consultation asks for views on OFSI’s approach to:
The consultation will close on 26 January 2017
Mr. Watchlist thinks this is awesome – understanding how this stuff works instills confidence in the system.
However, if you read the press release, they want to cap the penalties at 1 million GBP or 50% of the violation total, whichever is higher. That punishes the small offender, who can get socked for well above the amount of the business – while big wholesale players, like banks or casinos, will pay substantially less as a percentage of the violations.
And the wording of the release makes it seem that the cap is applied to the entire pattern of behavior, instead of to each transactions. So, if I have 10 500,000 GBP items, my cap is 2.5MM GBP (larger than 1MM GBP) – but if I had done it on a per violation basis, I would pay 10MM GBP (10 & 1MM).
A hammer to be sure – but one coated in velvet…
I’ve also had a chance to look at the actual consultation. I will post excerpts and my thoughts in a future post….
Link:
Filed under: Enforcement Actions, HMT Updates
