UK Offence Report

Preventing provision of internet services to or for the benefit of designated persons

regulation 54A(4) of The Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 9) Regulations 2022

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

4 A person who fails to comply with the requirement in paragraph (1), paragraph (2) or paragraph (3) commits 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
failing to comply with a notice or direction
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; other provisions of the same instrument use a mens rea word while this one does not (the Cundy v Le Cocq contrast).

What would breach regulation 54A(4)?

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 fails to comply with the requirement in paragraph (1), paragraph (2) or paragraph (3).
  2. Being served with a notice under the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 9) Regulations 2022 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  3. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  4. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated here: this instrument amends another one, and the penalty for the offence is in the instrument being amended.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

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
27 April 2022
In force from
29 April 2022
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 Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations are made under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 (c. 13) to amend the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (S.I. 2019/855) (“the 2019 Regulations”). The Regulations add new trade sanctions to Part 5 (Trade) of the 2019 Regulations. New regulation 54A of the 2019 Regulations (inserted by regulation 5 of these Regulations) requires providers of social media services, internet access services (i.e. internet service providers) and application stores to take reasonable steps to prevent their users in the United Kingdom from encountering or accessing online content generated by designated persons. Regulation 5 of the 2019 Regulations (amended by regulation 4 of these Regulation) confers on the Secretary of State the power to designate a person for the purposes of new regulation 54A. Failure to comply with a requirement imposed under new regulation 54A is a criminal offence. New regulation 77A of the 2019 regulations (inserted by regulation 7 of these Regulations) confers on OFCOM the power to request a person to provide information for the purpose of monitoring compliance with or detecting evasion of new regulation 54A. New regulation 88A of the 2019 regulations (inserted by regulation 11 of these Regulations) confers on OFCOM the power to impose civil monetary penalties, of up to £1,000,000, in relation to a failure to comply with a requirement imposed under new regulation 54A or a failure to comply with any request for information or documents. New regulation 88B sets out the procedure for imposing such a penalty. A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no, or no significant impact on the private or voluntary sector is foreseen. Instead a de minimis assessment has been prepared as this instrument is likely to entail some costs for business, but the costs will be relatively insignificant and the impact is estimated to be below £5 million per year. An impact assessment was, however, produced for the primary legislation and can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sanctions-and-anti-money-laundering-bill-impactassessment.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this became law

Both Houses had to approve this instrument before it could take effect, and did so.

Neither House could have amended it. A statutory instrument is put to each House as a whole thing, to be approved or not; the Houses can reject an instrument or record their regret, but they cannot change a word of it. That is the constitutional position for every offence on this site.

The full procedural history →

What Parliament said

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

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 “commits 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