Only one fine issued for breaching Russian sanctions

The government’s financial sanctions watchdog has admitted that it has only imposed a single £15,000 fine for evasion of Russian sanctions since they were introduced two and a half years ago.

Appearing before the Treasury Select Committee, the Treasury’s economic crime chief said that despite the imposition of the most far-reaching set of sanctions on any country, so far the organisation has levied only one fine.

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That fine, on a company called Integral Concierge Services (ICSL), was imposed in September after it was found that ICSL helped a designated person transfer and receive money.

So far no other fines have been issued, but Giles Thomson, the Treasury’s director of economic crime and sanctions, admitted it was a low number, given the scale of sanctions.

“I will certainly be very disappointed if we come back before you and your committee in a year’s time and we’ve only got this £15,000 fine,” he said, adding: “I don’t think we can consider it entirely in isolation.

“I think the figure at the moment is lower than we would want, and we hope to have more cases come out that will present a more rounded, fuller picture of our enforcement action.”

The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) only deals with breaches of financial sanctions – in other words, flows of money, not the flows of goods Sky News has documented in recent months. However, the small size of the fine is striking, given the scale of the sanctions regime.

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The OFSI now has a full-time staff of 150 people dedicated to clamping down on sanctions breakers. In the 2022/23 period it issued a total of £45,000 of fines, though neither of these fines (there were two) were in relation to Russia.