ECSH100500 - Publishing Details of the Non-compliant: Policy

Publishing details of the non-compliant: policy

Regulation 85 of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payers) Regulations (MLR 2017) requires HMRC to publish the details of civil sanctions issued to relevant persons “without undue delay” on GOV.UK. There are some exceptions to this:

  • HMRC must not publish, anonymously or otherwise, where the stability of the financial markets or an ongoing investigation would be in jeopardy.
  • HMRC must defer publication where publishing the details would be disproportionate. Full details would be published at a later point where we consider that publication would be proportionate.
  • HMRC must publish anonymously, where publishing the personal data of an individual (“identified or identifiable living individual”) would be ‘disproportionate’.
  • HMRC will publish anonymously and in aggregate, the details of penalties of a minor nature.
There is no definition of what is “disproportionate”. Caseworkers can refer to ECSH101000 under consideration of proportionality to assist in decision making.

HMRC generally considers penalties totalling £1,000 and below to be minor, but exceptions can be made where there is repeated non-compliance. This is an uncommon occurrence that may arise when a business continually fails to respond to a notice issued under regulation 66 MLR 2017.

In addition to publishing details of penalties, under regulation 60(11) MLR 2017, HMRC may publish details of the suspensions and cancellations of registrations, unless any of the exceptions above apply.

The penalty administration charge should not be published and therefore is not to be included in the penalty amount which is published.

 

Appeals and Reviews

Publishing details of the non-compliant (PDNC) is not a sanction and there is no right to a review or appeal of HMRC’s decision to publish this information. Only the underlying decisions which are being published, being the penalty, prohibitions of management, censure statement, suspension or cancellation, can all be subject to an independent review or appeal.

Where the business or individual on which the decision has been made, has requested an internal review prior to publication of the sanction, HMRC won’t publish the details until an outcome of the review has been reached. Where an appeal is received and accepted by the Tribunal, HMRC will publish the appeal/review status on GOV.UK, stating that an appeal or request for review has been received. Where an appeal is successful, HMRC will amend this note to “appeal successful”.  Where the appeal is unsuccessful, the note should say that “HMRC sanctions upheld at appeal”.