The impact of Brexit on UK sanctions laws could be ‘far-reaching’ and lead to more red tape for businesses in the future, a leading trade lawyer has warned.
Hogan Lovells partner Aline Doussin, who heads the firm’s UK trade team, said this week that the UK government, post-Brexit, will be able to adopt sanctions ‘separately and independently’ from what the EU does.
‘Going forward, one cannot exclude a significant divergence in the future of UK sanctions from what the EU will do on its own,’ she said in an article posted on Hogan Lovells’ website.
‘This could lead to additional compliance burdens for businesses and financial institutions, which will have to deal with multiple and increasingly complex sanctions regimes.’
In the past few weeks, secondary legislation has been put before Parliament to replace references in sanctions laws to member states and the EU with references to the UK, and to replace references to the competent authorities with references to the UK Treasury. This means existing aspects of the financial sanctions regimes against countries such as Afghanistan, Burma, Iran and Venezuela will continue.
Consequently, Doussin said, ‘we do not expect any gaps in implementing existing sanctions regimes’. Post-Brexit, the UK will be required by international law to implement UN sanctions in UK domestic law and will carry over all EU sanctions at the time of departure.
After that, however, the UK will ‘have the powers to adopt other sanctions under the Sanctions Act, separately and independently from what the EU does,’ Doussin said.
‘In this, the impact of Brexit on UK sanctions laws is far-reaching.’
Prime Minister Theresa May flew to Brussels this week for further talks with the European Commission and heads of EU member states, hoping to secure concessions over the backstop. However, EU leaders continue to emphasise that they will not renegotiate the withdrawal agreement.
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