Sanctions 2025

UK Trends and Developments Contributed by: John Binns, BCL Solicitors LLP

• contribute to multilateral efforts to prevent the spread and use of weapons and materials of mass destruction; or • promote respect for democracy, the rule of law, and good governance. Also included in the list (at Section 1 (2)(d)), however, is the very commonly used additional purpose of ‘fur - thering a foreign policy objective’ of the UK govern - ment. Potentially at least, that would serve the same sort of lofty and benevolent goals that are spelt out in the rest of Section 1 (2) – but not necessarily. The framework of SAMLA is also revealing of the breadth of measures ministers, having identified such purposes are worth pursuing, can take in the inter - est of pursuing them. Section 11 enables the des - ignation of persons by reference to their suspected involvement in a “specified activity” (or because they are owned or controlled by, acting on behalf of, or associated with someone so involved). Other parts of SAMLA (Section 3 (1)(b)(ii) for financial services, schedule 1 for goods and services) enable the pro - hibition of any or all transactions involving specified countries or persons connected with them. The defi - nitions of these activities, and of what it means to be “owned” or “controlled” by, or “associated” with persons, or to be “connected” with a country, are left The two Magnitsky regimes are expressed to have “global” reach, which means that neither includes (for the time being) financial or trade sanctions that are expressed in terms of “specified countries”. Instead, the “involved persons” targeted by these regimes are: • (in the case of the anti-corruption regime) those who are or have been involved in bribery of, or mis- appropriation of assets by, foreign public officials; • (in the case of the human rights regime) those who are or have been involved in acts that would, if done by a state party to the ECHR, constitute breaches of its articles 2 (the right to life), 3 (free - dom from torture or inhuman or degrading treat - ment), or 4 (freedom from slavery or forced labour); and to ministers to decide. The Magnitsky legacy

• (in both regimes) a broad range of related activity, including facilitating, supporting, concealing evi - dence of, or profiting from such conduct, or even being responsible for investigating or prosecuting it and (intentionally or recklessly) failing to do so. Ukraine: a game-changer This was the backdrop to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which has prompted a huge expansion of the UK’s sanctions framework in general, and of the Russia regulations in particu - lar. The expansion is so significant that the Russian regime already bears little resemblance to either its pre-2022 version or the UK’s other sanctions regimes. The first step, ushered through parliament by the government of Boris Johnson, but with the enthusi - astic support of Sir Keir Starmer (then leader of the opposition), was to amend SAMLA in various ways, all of which were designed to make life easier for the FCDO to make regulations and decisions, and harder for designated persons (DPs) and others to live with or challenge them. They included: • removal of most elements of parliamentary scru - tiny, including the requirement for the FCDO to report to parliament when amending regulations; • removal of the need for designations to be ‘appro - priate’ (though the courts have since confirmed that they would still need to be ‘proportionate’ under human rights laws); • restriction of damages in favour of DPs who suc - cessfully challenged their designations, to cases where the courts found bad faith on the FCDO’s part; and • the creation of ‘strict liability’ monetary penalties for financial sanctions breaches. Targeting Russia Notably, these changes were included in a piece of primary legislation primarily aimed at economic crime. The rhetoric in parliament from Johnson and Starmer alike made striking links between the two, with Starm - er keen to press the point that Johnson’s government had benefited (he said) from money “stolen from the Russian people”.

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