The Sanctions and Asset-Freezing (Amendment No. 2) (Jersey) Law 2022 (the “Amendment”), which amends the Sanctions and Asset-Freezing (Jersey) Law 2019 (the “Sanctions Law”), comes into force today (Wednesday 8 June).
This financial sanctions notice highlights a number of the changes made to the Sanctions Law by the Amendment:
- Reporting obligations
- New Civil Immunities provision
- New definitions for the terms owned, held, controlled, directly and indirectly
- Meaning of terrorism and related terms
Detail on the full range of changes can be found in the Written Report and the Explanatory Note to the Amendment. New Civil Immunities provision
The Amendment inserts into the Law a new Article 46A, which protects persons acting in good faith to comply with sanctions obligations or prohibitions from civil proceedings.
Reporting obligations
The reporting obligations set out in Article 32 of the Law are expanded by the Amendment to make clearer the obligation to report to the Minister any attempts to breach or circumvent sanctions prohibitions.
New definitions for the terms “owned”, “held”, “controlled”, “directly” and “indirectly”
The Law previously relied on a link to Council Regulation (EC) 2580/2001 for its definitions of “owned”, “held”, “controlled”, “directly” and “indirectly”. The Amendment removed this reference, replacing it with updated and expanded definitions of these terms in a new Article 2A titled ‘Meaning of “owned”, “held”, “controlled”, “directly” and “indirectly”.
A new schedule, Schedule 2, has also been added to the Sanctions Law, which sets out in detail the rules for interpreting Article 2A(6): this provision is one of the conditions for determining whether a legal person is owned, held or controlled (directly or indirectly) by another person (natural or legal).
The new Schedule 2 broadly reflects the equivalent provisions that are made in most UK sanctions Regulations, such as in Schedule 1 to the ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida (United Nations Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.
Meaning of terrorism and related terms
The Amendment introduces a new Article 18 of the Sanctions Law to insert a new definition of “involved person”. The new definition included elements that are similar to some of those in regulation 6 of the UK’s Counter-Terrorism (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulation 2019.
These amended provisions set out in more detail what is considered terrorism and terrorist activity for the purposes of an interim or final terrorist asset-freezing designation by the Minister for External Relations and Financial Services.
Guidance
Sanctions guidance on gov.je will be updated to reflect the changes introduced by the Amendment.
Enquiries
Non-media enquiries should be addressed to:
Head of International Compliance
External Relations
Office of the Chief Executive
sanctions@gov.je
Financial Sanctions Notice: Sanctions and Asset-Freezing (Amendment No. 2) (Jersey) Law 2022 8 June 2022
gov.je