The UK’s global anti-corruption sanctions regime allows the government to impose asset freezes and travel bans on those involved in certain kinds of corruption, namely bribery and misappropriation. They can be a powerful tool to hold to account those who commit serious corruption.
In partnership with other civil society organisations we work to ensure the global anti-corruption sanctions regime, and other UK sanctions regimes that may target corrupt actors such as those imposed on Russia, are used to their full potential.
This includes advocating for the government to:
By identifying potential loopholes and weaknesses in UK sanctions through our research and court monitoring programme we push the government to make sanctions as effective an anti-corruption tool as possible.
A group of anti-corruption NGOs has written to Foreign Secretary David Lammy urging the UK government to take swift action to identify, seize and return assets stolen from the people...
The report – “All bark and no bite?: Taking stock of the UK’s enforcement of sanctions” – reveals that there have been ZERO fines for breaches of financial sanctions imposed since 2022, ZERO convictions for sanctions evasion since 2012, and ZERO assets permanently seized through civil or criminal action related to sanctions violations.
Over the past year we have monitored the enforcement of sanctions breaches and challenges to sanctions designations in the UK courts, based on our court monitoring programme and enforcement expertise.
The UK government has prevailed in two high-profile challenges related to Russian sanctions measures, including the detention of a superyacht and a UK citizen’s sanctions designation. On Tuesday, the appeals...
The government unveiled its first ever UK sanctions strategy last week to coincide with the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. There is no doubt that this anniversary...
Yesterday the Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation’s (OFSI) annual review landed, with some alarming news. In the nearly two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, despite £22.7 billion of...
Today the first-ever judicial challenge to a designation under the UK’s Russia sanctions regime was dismissed, as the High Court upheld the government’s decision to impose sanctions against the US-UK...
At the end of June 2023, the UK introduced new restrictions to prohibit lawyers from advising Russian companies on certain business transactions that would be prohibited under sanctions if they...
