UK Offence Report

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

regulation 27P(4) of The Republic of Belarus (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) 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

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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

What would breach regulation 27P(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 Republic of Belarus (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 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
6 June 2023
In force from
9 June 2023
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 Republic of Belarus (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (S.I. 2019/600) (“the 2019 Regulations”). Regulation 3 amends Part 1 of the 2019 Regulations to include a definition of OFCOM. Regulations 4 and 5 amend Part 2 of the 2019 Regulations. Regulation 4 confers on the Secretary of State the power to designate a person for the purposes of new regulation 27P. Regulation 5 clarifies when a person may be involved in “conduct destabilising Ukraine or undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty or independence of Ukraine” or “obtaining a benefit from or supporting the Government of Belarus through carrying on a relevant business activity” for the purposes of the designation criteria, by including holding the right to nominate a director or relevant entities and a list of people who work for, or are affiliated to, the Government of Belarus. That regulation also clarifies when a person may be considered to be a member of, or associated with, an involved person for the purposes of the designation criteria. This includes a list of immediate family members. Regulation 6 amends Part 3 of the 2019 Regulations to limit the funds that Belarus can raise by restricting its access to the UK securities. Regulations 7 to 10 amend Part 5 of the 2019 Regulations relating to trade, and insert new Schedules. New restrictions are imposed in relation to trade in— banknotes; chemical and biological weapons-related goods and technology (as specified in new Schedule 2H); machinery-related goods and technology (as specified in new Schedule 2I); gold, gold jewellery and relevant processed gold (as specified in new Schedule 2J); cement, rubber and wood products (as specified in new Schedule 2J); internet services (as specified in new Chapter 2D of Part 5). Regulation 7 inserts new definitions of the goods and services listed above for the purposes of Part 5 of the 2019 Regulations; Regulation 8 extends the prohibitions in Chapter 2 of Part 5 of the 2019 Regulations relating to exports to Belarus and related activities relating to banknotes, chemical and biological weapons-related goods and technology and machinery-related goods and technology and makes consequential amendments; Regulation 9 extends the prohibitions in Chapter 2B of Part 5 of the 2019 Regulations relating to imports from Belarus and related activities relating to gold, gold jewellery, relevant processed gold, cement, rubber and wood products and makes consequential amendments; Regulation 10 creates new regulation 27P of the 2019 Regulations and 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. Failure to comply with a requirement imposed under new regulation 27P is a criminal offence. Regulations 11-14 amend Part 6 of the 2019 Regulations to create exceptions to some of the new prohibitions. Regulations 15-17 confer on OFCOM the power to request a person to provide information for the purpose of monitoring compliance with or detecting evasion of new regulation 27P and make consequential amendments. Regulations 18. 19 and 21 confer 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 27P or a failure to comply with any request for information or documents. New regulation 56B sets out the procedure for imposing such a penalty. They also make consequential amendments. Regulation 20 amends regulation 53 so that certain “relevant offences” may only be investigated by HM Revenue and Customs following a referral by either a Secretary of State, the Treasury or OFCOM. 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