UK Offence Report

Offences of breaching Article 2(2) or 4(1) of the EC Regulation

regulation 2 of The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia (Freezing of Funds) Regulations 1998

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

2 Any person who commits

a breach of Article 2(2) or Article 4(1) of the EC Regulation shall be guilty of an offence.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 regulation 2?

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 Article 2(2) or Article 4(1) of the EC Regulation.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia (Freezing of Funds) Regulations 1998, 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)
3 months
Maximum prison (on indictment)
3 months

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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Freezing of Funds and Prohibition on Investment) Regulations 1999
Revoked on
25 June 1999
Made
7 July 1998
In force from
8 July 1998
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

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

These Regulations provide that breaches of certain provisions of Council Regulation (EC) No. 1295/98 of 22 June 1998, concerning the freezing of funds held abroad by the Governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia (“the EC Regulations”), are to constitute criminal offences. The provisions in question are: Article 2(1), which provides that (subject to certain exemptions set out in Article 3 of the EC Regulations) no funds are to be made available, directly or indirectly, to or for the benefit of the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or the government of Serbia; and Article 4(1), which prohibits the knowing and intentional participation in activities the object or effect of which is to circumvent the provisions of Article 2. These Regulations also make provision for information to be requested by or on behalf of the Treasury for the purposes of ensuring compliance with the EC Regulation, in accordance with Article 4(2) and (3) of that Regulation. Failure to provide such information, the provision of false information or the suppression of information is made a criminal offence. Provision is also made with respect to penalties and proceedings for offences under the Regulations.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

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