Giles Thomson on UK Sanctions Priorities and Enforcement
Apr 19, 2024
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Giles Thomson, Director of OFSI, discusses the UK's sanctions priorities and enforcement landscape. They explore transatlantic cooperation, regulatory collaboration, preventing sanctions evasion, and the importance of public-private collaboration for effective sanctions compliance.
Increased self-disclosures and intelligence sources signal growth in UK sanctions enforcement capabilities.
Transatlantic cooperation focuses on combating circumvention of strategic goods to Russia, enhancing sanctions evasion prevention.
Deep dives
Enhancing Transatlantic Cooperation for Effective Sanctions
The podcast discusses the evolution of transatlantic cooperation between the UK and the US in implementing sanctions. This collaboration, sparked by the significance of Russia sanctions, aims to ensure impactful sanctions with minimal implementation costs. By deepening their relationship, both countries have aligned on targets, enforced consistent messaging to their audiences, and developed joint fact sheets, focusing on effective implementation and addressing evasion issues.
Prioritizing Action Against Sanctions Evasion
The episode highlights the UK's focus on combating circumvention and evasion related to strategic battlefield goods reaching Russia. OFFSEA intensifies efforts in understanding and monitoring the financing aspects of such trade activities and addressing the circumvention of oil price caps. Enhancing enforcement actions and intelligence capabilities signals a proactive approach to tackling sanctions evasion effectively.
Promoting Integration of Export Controls and Sanctions Compliance
Within the podcast, emphasis is placed on integrating financial sanctions and export control measures for enhanced compliance effectiveness. The UK government has set up the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation to provide guidance on export controls and related issues, encouraging the private sector to assess their risk exposure regularly. Collaboration between government bodies and industry players is key to ensuring robust sanctions and compliance frameworks.
‘We’ve got new legal powers which we will be using… but also the scale of how we’re operating has, for OFSI at least, changed. Both in terms of the volume of self-disclosures and other intelligence we’re getting from different sources… and secondly how capabilities at OFSI are changing and transforming.'
-Giles Thomson on changes in the UK sanctions enforcement landscape
In the latest episode of the Sanctions Space Podcast, Justine is joined by Giles Thomson, Director of the UK Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation. They discuss sanctions priorities for the UK government, the evolving enforcement landscape, and transatlantic cooperation between OFSI and OFAC
Giles Thomson has been Director of the Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) since November 2020. He is also the senior official in HM Treasury responsible for economic crime policy and is the UK’s Head of Delegation to the Financial Action Task Force. He has been working on sanctions and economic crime within HM Treasury since 2016. Prior to that, Giles held a range of positions across HM Treasury and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
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