Overview
On March 14, 2025, HM Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (“OFSI”) published details of an enforcement action for information offences against three charities under the UK’s International Counter-Terrorism sanctions regime. The enforcement action is notable for four reasons. First, this represents the first OFSI enforcement action for a breach relating to a failure to respond to requests made under OFSI’s information gathering powers. Second, this is also the first OFSI enforcement action brought under a thematic (as opposed to a geographic) sanctions regime. Third, this is the second time OFSI has made use of its disclosure enforcement (i.e., “name and shame”) powers. Fourth, it underscores OFSI’s willingness to bring enforcement actions involving a wide-range of industries, in this case the charity sector. The enforcement action offers an important reminder to all companies of the breadth of their obligations under UK financial sanctions regulations and, in particular, the importance of implementing and communicating procedures to ensure the provision of timely responses to OFSI information requests.
OFSI’s Information Gathering Powers
OFSI has the power under UK thematic and geographic sanctions regulations to, among other things, ask a person to provide information that OFSI may reasonably require for certain specified purposes if OFSI believes that the person may be able to provide the information. The purposes for which OFSI can request information are as follows: (i) establishing for the purpose of any provision of UK financial sanctions the nature and amount/quantity of any funds or economic resources owned, held or controlled by or on the behalf of a designated person, or made available to, of for the benefit of, a UK designated person; (ii) establishing the nature of any financial transactions entered into by a UK designated person; (iii) monitoring compliance with, or detecting evasion of, UK financial sanctions, related licensing conditions, or reporting obligations; or (iv) detecting or obtaining evidence of the commission of an offence under UK financial sanctions, related licensing conditions, or reporting obligations. Requested information must be provided to OFSI within the time period specified in the information request, or within a reasonable time period if no specific timeframe is communicated by OFSI.
A person breaches these obligations if they:
- without reasonable excuse, refuse or fail to comply with an OFSI information request within the relevant timeframe and in the manner specified in the request;
- knowingly or recklessly give any information, or produce any document, which is false in a material particular in response to an OFSI information request;
- destroy, mutilate, deface, conceal, or remove any document with intent to evade OFSI’s information gathering powers; or
- otherwise intentionally obstruct OFSI in the exercise of its information gathering powers.
The Enforcement Action
OFSI’s enforcement action concerns three UK registered charities regulated by the Charities Commission – Sahara Hands, Peculiar Peoples’ Palace Ministries, and Impact Planet – that each repeatedly failed to respond to OFSI requests for information needed to assist OFSI in monitoring compliance with the UK’s International Counter-Terrorism sanctions regime. OFSI initially emailed its information requests to the charities using publicly available contact information. When no response was received from any of the charities within the specified timeframe, OFSI re-sent the requests by post and email using the charities’ contact details registered with the Charities Commission on two further occasions, including using contact information from the Charity Commission register that had been updated since OFSI’s previous communication. None of the three charities responded to any of these communications, even when OFSI informed the charities in its third communication that it intended to make use of its enforcement disclosure powers in relation to the charities’ failure to respond to the information requests.
OFSI assessed the severity of the charities’ breaches as “moderate” and determined that an enforcement disclosure was the appropriate enforcement response. In reaching that decision, OFSI considered the following aggravating factors:
- the charities failed to respond, despite several communication attempts by OFSI. As the charities were registered with the Charities Commission, OFSI would have expected them to be aware of the need to engage with OFSI while their charities were active; and
- the charities lack of engagement hindered OFSI’s ability to monitor compliance with UK International Counter-Terrorism sanctions.
While OFSI recognised the possibility that the lack of engagement from the charities may have been a result of their failure to update contact information on the register of charities, OFSI did not consider this to be a mitigating factor because Charity Commission guidance for trustees outlines the duty placed on trustees to ensure their charity is accountable and complying with the law, which includes ensuring they are contactable through the information provided to the Charity Commission.
Key Takeaways
Persons required to comply with UK sanctions, including charities and their trustees, have a duty to respond to OFSI requests for information and must do so within any timeframe for response specified by OFSI when making the request or otherwise reasonably promptly. Companies should check that their (i) sanctions compliance policies and procedures provide adequate guidance to personnel on how to respond to information requests received from OFSI and (ii) personnel are appropriately trained on how to respond to OFSI information requests.
A failure to update contact information and/or regularly monitor correspondence was identified by OFSI as contributing to the information offences committed by the charities involved in this enforcement action, as well as to delayed responses by other charities to similar OFSI information requests. Persons required to comply with UK sanctions should check that their publicly available contact information is up to date at all times and ensure that incoming correspondence is regularly monitored and appropriately escalated to ensure that they discharging their responsibility to respond to OFSI requests for information in a timely manner.
