UK govt fines firm £1m for Russia sanctions violation

A UK company was fined £1 million this month for trade that violated sanctions against Russia, the UK government has said, adding it will use an additional £50 million in funding to crack down on evaders.

Following the custom of UK authorities in such cases, the notice did not name the company involved in the ‘Compound Settlement,’ announced 22 August. In May of this year, when the government said that a UK company paid a fine of £920,437.20 for unlicensed exports of dual-use or military goods, it said that penalty was the highest compound settlement since the beginning of the year.

‘The UK is committed to maintaining international efforts to ensure sanctions are effective, investigate activities that support circumvention and act accordingly,’ the government said. ‘An additional £50 million in funding will be available to improve enforcement of the UK’s sanctions regime, working with our key partners that are building capacity and capability within their own systems,’ it said, adding that, ‘The new G7 Enforcement Co-ordination Mechanism, announced in the February G7 Leaders statement, will enable the international community to tackle sanctions enforcement together.’

The UK says that to date it has sanctioned over 1,600 individuals and entities, including 29 banks with global assets worth £1 trillion, 129 oligarchs with a combined net worth of over £145 billion, and 96% (over £20bn) of UK-Russia trade.