UK Offence Report

Subject to paragraph (2) below, any person referred to in Article 11 of the EC Counter-measures Regulation…

article 2(1) of The Extraterritorial US Legislation (Sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Libya) (Protection of Trading Interests) Order 1996

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

1 Subject to paragraph (2) below, any person referred to in Article 11 of the EC Counter-measures Regulation (that is to say — i any natural person being a resident in the Community and a national of a member state, or ii any legal person incorporated within the Community, or iii any natural or legal person referred to in Article 1(2) of Council Regulation (EEC) No. 4055/86, or iv any other natural person being a resident in the Community, unless that person is in the country of which he is a national, or v any other natural person within the Community, including its territorial waters and air space and in any aircraft or on any vessel under the jurisdiction or control of a member state, acting in a professional capacity) who commits a breach of Article 2 or the first paragraph of Article 5 of that Regulation, and any director, manager or other person with management responsibilities to whom the obligation in the first paragraph of Article 2 of that Regulation applies who commits a breach of that paragraph, shall be guilty of an offence and liable — a on conviction on indictment, to a fine; b on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
contravening a requirement of the instrument
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach article 2(1)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. On these words an offence is committed where a person commits a breach of that paragraph.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Extraterritorial US Legislation (Sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Libya) (Protection of Trading Interests) Order 1996, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

expressed as the statutory maximum (the prescribed sum): the same words mean £5,000 in England and Wales and £10,000 in Scotland.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
19 December 1996
In force from
28 January 1997
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order — a makes it an offence to breach Article 2 or 5 of Council Regulation (EC) No. 2271/96 of 22nd November 1996 protecting against the effects of the extraterritorial application of legislation adopted by a third country, and b disapplies sections 1(1) and (3), 2 and 6 of the Protection of Trading Interests Act 1980 to the extent that the Council Regulation applies. The offence in (a) is punishable by an unlimited fine on indictment or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (currently £5,000) on summary conviction: these are the penalties imposed for breach of sections 1(1) and (3) and 2 of the 1980 Act, disapplied as in (b). The offence cannot be committed as a result of acts or omissions in another member state or the acts or omissions outside any member state of nationals of other member states, bodies incorporated in other member states, ship-owners with no relevant connection with the United Kingdom or individuals who were not resident in the United Kingdom at any relevant time.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”
Confidence
0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source