Amendment to Jersey Sanctions Legislation

1. The Assistant Minister for External Relations has made the Sanctions and Asset-Freezing (Amendment of Law and Order) (Jersey) Order 2023 (the "Amendment Order").

2. The Sanctions and Asset Freezing (Jersey) Law 2019 (the "Sanctions Law") and the Sanctions and Asset-Freezing (Implementation of External Sanctions) (Jersey) Order 2021 (the "Sanctions Implementation Order"), which was made under the Sanctions Law, are the Island's key pieces of sanctions legislation, through which it implements all United Nations sanctions and autonomous UK sanctions.

3. The Amendment Order amends the Sanctions Law and Sanctions Implementation Order to improve compliance with international standards set by the United Nations ("UN") and the Financial Action Task Force (the "FATF"), and to improve the effective implementation of sanctions in Jersey.

Amendments to the Sanctions Law

4. The Amendment Order amends the definition of "financial services" to include the provision of a virtual currency exchange and the definition of "funds" to include virtual assets, in line with FATF standards. It also amends the definition of "economic resources", so the term includes both actual and potential assets, to reflect the definition of "economic resources" affirmed in UN Security Council Resolution 2270 (2016).

Amendments to the Sanctions Implementation Order

5. Article 3 of the Amendment Order amends Article 5 of the Sanctions Implementation Order to enable the Minister to grant a licence to enable a person or entity to do something that would otherwise be prohibited by an implemented UK sanctions provision, if the Minister for External Relations (the "Minister") is satisfied that an equivalent act would be permitted by virtue of an exception in the relevant UK sanctions Regulations, but the UK exception does not have effect in Jersey.

6. Article 4 of the Amendment Order amends Schedule 2 of the Sanctions Implementation Order to provide that, where an implemented UK sanctions instrument contains a reference to a matter, product or other thing as defined in UK legislation, the reference is to be read as a reference both to that matter, product or other thing under UK legislation, and to the corresponding matter, product or other thing and its meaning under corresponding Jersey legislation. The amendment improves the equivalence provision in the Sanctions Implementation Order to provide for more effective implementation of sanctions in Jersey.

Coming into force

7. The Amendment Order comes into force 7 days after it was made on 30 March 2023.

Further Information

8. More information on financial sanctions implementation in Jersey can be found at gov.je/sanctions. 

9. The Amendment Order

Enquiries 

10. Any questions about this notice should be addressed to: 

Financial Sanctions Implementation Unit

sanctions@gov.je