On August 30, the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), part of HM Treasury, issued an updated version of its General Guidance for financial sanctions under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 (the “Guidance”) requiring crypto exchanges and custodian wallet providers operating in the country to report a suspected breach of financial sanctions to authorities as soon as practicable and by filling out the prescribed form available on GOV.UK.

Examples of information to be reported include information about:

• A known or suspected designated person.

• Offences (e.g. making funds or economic resources available to a designated person, dealing with frozen funds or economic resources, credits to frozen accounts..)

As outlined in the Guidance, UK financial sanctions apply to all persons [individuals and legal entities] within the territory and territorial sea of the UK and to all UK persons [individuals and legal entities], wherever they are in the world.

Breaches of financial sanctions may result in penalties including monetary penalties which maximum may range from 50% of the total breach to up to £1m – whichever is the greater value.