JFSC ‘Turns Up The Heat' On Non-compliance

It cannot have gone unnoticed that the Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC) is taking an increasingly public stance with regard to regulated entities' compliance with AML/CFT (Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism) obligations, including the imposition of financial penalties.

While the JFSC has had the power to impose civil financial penalties for breach of these obligations since March 2015, it is only in the past year that we have seen the first, and only, two cases where the JFSC has exercised such powers. The JFSC recently imposed a civil financial penalty on Equity Trust (Jersey) Limited in the amount of GBP115,575. The penalty imposed on Equity follows the civil financial penalty of GBP381,010 which the JFSC imposed on Sanne Fiduciary Services Limited in June 2019.  In both cases, the penalties were imposed with regard to regulatory and AML/CFT obligations.