UK Offence Report

Legal advisory services

regulation 54D(4) of The Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 3) 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 contravenes any of the prohibitions in paragraph (1) (“P”) commits an offence, but it is

a defence for P to show that P did not know and had no reasonable cause to suspect that the relevant activity satisfied the condition in paragraph (2).

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
breaching a condition of a licence, permit or consent
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

prohibitions in paragraph (1) (“P”) commits an offence, but it is a defence for P to show that P did not know and had no reasonable cause to suspect that the relevant activity satisfied the condition in paragraph (2).

What would breach regulation 54D(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 contravenes any of the prohibitions in paragraph (1) (“P”).
  2. Holding a valid licence but doing the thing it allows outside the hours, place or limits its conditions set under the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2023.
  3. Failing to do something a condition positively requires - a record, a notification, a monitoring step - even though the licensed activity itself is carried on properly.

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 June 2023
In force from
30 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 Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (S.I. 2019/855) (“the 2019 Regulations”). Regulation 3 amends Chapter 6B (professional and business services) of Part 5 of the 2019 Regulations to introduce a new prohibition on the provision of legal advisory services where the legal advisory services are provided in relation to activity which would contravene certain prohibitions in the 2019 Regulations if that activity were carried out by a UK person, or in the United Kingdom. Regulation 4 introduces new exceptions to the prohibition on the provision of professional and business services to a person connected with Russia for the provision of auditing services, and in relation to the provision of expert evidence in connection with legal proceedings. Regulation 5 introduces an exception from the new prohibition, inserting a new regulation 60DB in the 2019 Regulations, and regulation 6 amends regulation 61 to ensure that the new prohibition is not contravened by an act done to deal with an emergency. Regulations 7 and 9 make consequential amendments to regulations 82 and 87 on the enforcement of the 2019 Regulations. Regulation 8 amends regulation 85 so that the offences specified in regulation 85(3B) and (3C) may only be investigated by HM Revenue and Customs following a referral by either a Secretary of State, the Treasury or the Office of Communications, or a decision by the Commissioners for His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to treat a suspected offence as if it had been so referred to them. Regulation 10 inserts a definition of “legal advisory services” into Schedule 3J. A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public service is foreseen.

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.

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