UK Offence Report

Supply and delivery of metals

regulation 46II(3) of The Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2023

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

3 A person who contravenes

a prohibition in paragraph (1) commits an offence, but it is

a defence for

a person charged with the offence of contravening paragraph (1) to show that the person did not know and had no reasonable cause to suspect that the supply or delivery was from

a place in Russia, whether directly or indirectly.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
Legal burden on the defendant

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 gives a defence the defendant must prove, on the balance of probabilities. A legal burden of that kind can be read down to a merely evidential one under section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 where placing it on the defendant would be disproportionate (R v Lambert [2001] UKHL 37; Sheldrake v DPP [2004] UKHL 43).

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

The defence, as drafted

enes a prohibition in paragraph (1) commits an offence, but it is a defence for a person charged with the offence of contravening paragraph (1) to show that the person did not know and had no reasonable cause to suspect that the supply or delivery was from a place in Russia, whether directly or indirectly.

What would breach regulation 46II(3)?

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 contravenes a prohibition in paragraph (1).
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2023, 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
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
12 December 2023
In force from
Not determined
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”). Regulation 3 amends the prohibitions relating to processing payments to provide that these apply to processing a payment in any currency which is received by a UK credit or financial institution but do not apply to the initial crediting of a payment to an account which is in the name of the credit or financial institution but not in the name of a customer of that credit or financial institution. Regulation 4 amends existing definitions of certain products, both to add exclusions in relation to certain products where they fall within Schedule 2 to the Export Control Order 2008 (“the 2008 Order”) (S.I. 2008/3231) or Annex 1 of the Dual-Use Regulation and to remove exclusions relating to certain products where they fall within Schedule 3 to the 2008 Order. Regulation 5 extends the prohibitions relating to trade in luxury goods and regulation 9 amends the exceptions to those prohibitions consequentially. Regulation 6 makes minor amendments to the prohibitions relating to relevant processed iron and steel products. Certain iron and steel products to which the prohibitions in Chapter 4C of Part 5 to the 2019 Regulations are to apply are added by regulation 22(10) and Schedule 1. New prohibitions relating to trade in certain metals are created by regulations 7 and 22(11) and Schedule 2. Regulation 8 amends the exceptions relating to the prohibition on processing payments in regulation 17A(2) of the 2019 Regulations. Regulation 10 creates new exceptions to the prohibitions on G7 dependency and further goods and expands those for luxury goods where these relate to consumer communication devices and software updates. Regulations 11 to 13 create exceptions for iron and steel products, relevant processed iron and steel products and metals where they were exported from Russia before the prohibition come into force or where they are already in free circulation in the United Kingdom. Regulation 14 expands the exceptions from the prohibitions on G7 dependency and further goods in the case of emergencies. Regulations 15 and 22(22) allow the Treasury to grant licences for certain activities carried out by a UK entity in order to divest itself of assets where those assets are subject to a sanction under the 2019 Regulations. Regulation 16 creates new reporting obligations to be imposed on relevant firms in relation to funds and economic resources held by them for prohibited persons (as defined by the amendment contained in that regulation). Regulation 17 creates new reporting obligations on designated persons themselves, regulation 18 prescribes the criminal penalty for breach of those obligations, regulation 20 provides that those obligations are to be regarded as not being financial sanctions legislation for the purposes of Part 8 of the Policing and Crime Act 2017 (c. 3) and regulation 21 allows the Treasury to impose civil monetary penalties for breaches of those obligations. Regulation 19 prescribes offences created by these Regulations, the suspected commission of which may be referred to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs for investigation. Regulation 22— makes changes to the products covered by the prohibitions on trade in critical-industry goods and critical industry technology (paragraphs (2) to (8)), luxury goods (paragraph (9)), defence and security goods and defence and security technology (paragraphs (12) to (16) and Schedule 3) and G7 dependency and further goods (paragraphs (17) to (20)) and Schedules 4, 5 and 6); creates an additional ground on which the Treasury may licence the processing of payments which would otherwise be prohibited by regulation 17A(2) of the 2019 Regulations (paragraph (23)); omits certain commodity codes and the associated descriptions (paragraph (24) and Schedule 7). Minor consequential amendments on that made in regulation 3(2) are made by regulation 23. A full impact assessment of the effect that this instrument will have on the costs of business, the voluntary sector and the public sector has been published alongside these Regulations and is available from legislation.gov.uk or from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, King Charles Street, London SW1A 2AH.

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