UK HMRC: ‘Not in public interest’ to disclose identity of company behind £2.7m settlement

The UK’s HMRC, the enforcement body for breaches of export controls, has given a terse response to a Parliamentary Committee’s question regarding a ‘very high’ settlement (payment of £2.7m) paid in relation to unlicenced military goods.

The UK Export Control Joint Unit (‘ECJU’) announced in April that ‘Between December 2021 and February 2022, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) issued compound settlement offers between £1,000 and circa £2.7 million to 8 UK exporters.’ The second largest settlement was for £60,000.

In correspondence to the HMRC from the Committees on Arms Export Controls (‘CAEC’), chair Mark Garnier MP noted that given the atypical size of the settlement, the committee would like to be supplied with information including the name of the exporter, the destination of the exports, the cost of the HMRC investigation culminating in the penalty, and whether any similarly-sized penalty had ever been paid before.

In response, the HMRC’s Richard Las and Joanne Cheetham said that it is policy ‘not to publish the names of individuals or companies accepting Compound Settlements’ – as was made clear to companies that accept their terms, and that the HMRC ‘do not consider that disclosing the company name would drive compliance, promote voluntary disclosure or be proportionate,’ and it was therefore not in the public interest to disclose.  Nor, they said, was it policy to disclose the destination of the exports.

They did reveal however, that the investigation into the case had taken four months to conclude, and that it was the largest such fine to date.