Yet more Gov spaffing on legals and tribunals

[Andy Onchan]

1 hour ago, offshoremanxman said:

So you’d rather the DfE spaffed it all on nothing instead? It would at least give the FSA a proper stable recurring income base without them having to look for fines to drive income. 

No. I believe it should go direct to the Treasury general account to pay for health, education etc. It shouldn't be used to prop up any specific department.

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, Andy Onchan said:

The £££ amount generated via the Registry is not pennies. I'd think twice about handing all of that dosh over to a regulator so that they can build an unnecessary empire. Having said that where Registry currently resides with DfE is also the wrong place. I can't help thinking that some of the charges levied by the Registry are akin to a tax.

The most recent detailed accounts for 2020-21 show that Central Registry made £13.3 million (income £15.2 m less spend of £1.9 m ).  Of course that will be more than Companies (property fees etc will also be included) but it will make up most of it.  The Ship and Aircraft Registries also made a nett contribution (0.3 m and 1.1 m respectively) though from memory that doesn't happen every year.

This means that the DfE can therefore pretend it is 'self-financing', though they'll always ask for extra funding for any special projects they control as well.  So they effectively start each year with £15 million that they can spend on themselves and any thing else they fancy.  So relatives and mates are given jobs, chums are given handouts, meetings are held, overseas destinations are visited and there never seems to any justification for any of it except vague words.

[Roger Mexico]

17 minutes ago, offshoremanxman said:

That’s correct and the money would be much better spent moving this income back to where it was previously (sat under the FSC) so that the FSA could make inroads towards being self funding rather than tasked with the almost impossible job of raising revenue through a dwindling base of license-holders which it can only largely do through the issuing of fines. That or health but anywhere but DfE. 

But that would just replicate the problem with DfE in a different place.  And the FSA certainly don't need any more encouragement to employ any more 'managers'.

And your wrong about the fines as well.  According to the latest accounts:

Civil penalty income reflects administrative civil penalties levied on regulated and registered entities. In addition £472,409 (2021: £160,044) was charged in respect of discretionary penalties levied on regulated entities arising from successful enforcement actions or settlement agreements. The discretionary penalty receipts are not treated as income of the Authority, and are therefore not reflected in the Authority’s income and expenditure account, and are accounted for as credits to the IOM Government’s general revenue.

So the fines all go to central government funds.  The only such income that is received by the FSA is for Civil Penalties, which only average about £20k a year (see p 43)

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, offshoremanxman said:

The fines situation is interesting. This makes it even harder for them to become self funding as everyone seems to be telling them they have to be. That can’t even be possible if they don’t benefit from any fines levied either. Personally I’d be happy to see the registry income go absolutely anywhere but the DfE. 

The fines going centrally isn't necessarily a bad thing as it stops pressure on an organisation that might otherwise impose fines too fast or harshly if it was seen as necessary to obtain revenue.  Not that that will stop the accusations (see speed cameras).

Putting the Registry under the FSA would cause some complications because the Central Registry also includes various other functions,  births etc, property and so on.  There's probably some cross-subsidy from the financial side as well.

[John Wright]

Well, I took the bull by the horns this morning and completed and submitted my new FSA return.

Im a designated business, with only one client in the field. I’m a trustee of a largish private family trust I set up in 1988 for the settlor.

I don’t hold client money and I’m not “onboarding” any new clients. Apart from the fees for that the rest of my business is duty advocate legal aid and tribunal fees.

It took 2 hours, 

No new funds will ever come in. The settlor died 20+ years ago and I’ve known the few beneficiaries for 35 years, or for their lives if born since 1988.

I had to tick or “populate” every box. Some had drop downs. Click on box, click on drop down arrow, click on the choice. 60 like that. Three steps per box. Lots of questions were about PEP’s and high risk clients. Not relevant.

Then there were the lists of countries and territories where my clients lived, how many, sanctions, etc. 400 of those boxes. I only had one box to make a positive entry in, the IoM. But I had to enter 0 in all the irrelevant boxes.

No idea who designed it, but it’s not proportionate,  it’s a one size fits all tick box exercise for the burgeoning compliance industry and it’s regulators and international overseers.

Despair. The form could have default choices, that cancel many questions. The 400 little number boxes could automatically show zero unless you make a number  entry. It has GTS written all over it.

[The Phantom]

4 minutes ago, John Wright said:

Well, I took the bull by the horns this morning and completed and submitted my new FSA return.

Im a designated business, with only one client in the field. I’m a trustee of a largish private family trust I set up in 1988 for the settlor.

I don’t hold client money and I’m not “onboarding” any new clients. Apart from the fees for that the rest of my business is duty advocate legal aid and tribunal fees.

It took 2 hours, 

No new funds will ever come in. The settlor died 20+ years ago and I’ve known the few beneficiaries for 35 years, or for their lives if born since 1988.

I had to tick or “populate” every box. Some had drop downs. Click on box, click on drop down arrow, click on the choice. 60 like that. Three steps per box. Lots of questions were about PEP’s and high risk clients. Not relevant.

Then there were the lists of countries and territories where my clients lived, how many, sanctions, etc. 400 of those boxes. I only had one box to make a positive entry in, the IoM. But I had to enter 0 in all the irrelevant boxes.

No idea who designed it, but it’s not proportionate,  it’s a one size fits all tick box exercise for the burgeoning compliance industry and it’s regulators and international overseers.

Despair. The form could have default choices, that cancel many questions. The 400 little number boxes could automatically show zero unless you make a number  entry. It has GTS written all over it.

Standard from our 'business friendly' FSA nowadays.  Nobody will dare to challenge the madness though, as otherwise they'll pay you a little visit, fine you £1000s and strike you off as a Director because you forgot to tick a couple of boxes in some vague AML procedure. 

I heard recently that they wanted to approve in advance any changes to shareholders for Captive Insurance companies.  Bear in mind that many of them are owned by large multinational PLCs! 

[TABITM]

On 5/25/2023 at 3:52 PM, The Phantom said:

Standard from our 'business friendly' FSA nowadays.  Nobody will dare to challenge the madness though, as otherwise they'll pay you a little visit, fine you £1000s and strike you off as a Director because you forgot to tick a couple of boxes in some vague AML procedure. 

I heard recently that they wanted to approve in advance any changes to shareholders for Captive Insurance companies.  Bear in mind that many of them are owned by large multinational PLCs! 

It looks as though these AAO guys challenged them, though and won (https://www.courts.im/media/3265/agreed-costs-order-aao-technologies-limited.pdf). It's about time someone did; their webinar the other day on the PEP review made me ask one big question "If everyone failed the review, is there a failure on the part of the AUTHORITY in communicating what exactly is expected?"

Yet when the AUTHORITY marked their own homework, they arrogantly proclaimed that it wasn't their fault at all. 

It looks like the island lost yet again because of it, as AAO moved everything innovative outside of the island and away from the incompetence/arrogance of the FSA.

[The Phantom]

7 hours ago, TABITM said:

It looks as though these AAO guys challenged them, though and won (https://www.courts.im/media/3265/agreed-costs-order-aao-technologies-limited.pdf). It's about time someone did; their webinar the other day on the PEP review made me ask one big question "If everyone failed the review, is there a failure on the part of the AUTHORITY in communicating what exactly is expected?"

Yet when the AUTHORITY marked their own homework, they arrogantly proclaimed that it wasn't their fault at all. 

It looks like the island lost yet again because of it, as AAO moved everything innovative outside of the island and away from the incompetence/arrogance of the FSA.

I'm sure someone else took them to court and win recently too.

[Roger Mexico]

7 hours ago, TABITM said:

It looks as though these AAO guys challenged them, though and won (https://www.courts.im/media/3265/agreed-costs-order-aao-technologies-limited.pdf).

[...] It looks like the island lost yet again because of it, as AAO moved everything innovative outside of the island and away from the incompetence/arrogance of the FSA.

To get the full story you need to look at the previous costs decision and why it was a costs decision was after AAO had made two separate appeals to the Tribunal against the FSA:

The Tribunal having assumed jurisdiction, and the appeals process having begun, the Respondent has subsequently - external to the proceedings - revoked the two decisions against which the Appellant appeals and has expressed its opinion that the Tribunal has thereby been deprived of its jurisdiction and become functus officio.

So the FSA withdrew its decisions, but didn't reverse them, it just tried to make AAO start the process all over again.  The Tribunal Chair was unimpressed and awarded full costs against the FSA.

[John Wright]

And another FSA annual return submitted today. Same nonsense.

Id put off doing it because it is an admin chore. Deadline looming and just received a reminder saying 75% hadn't submitted.

Better than last year, only an hour. But still lots of non relevant or excessive stuff.

If they started with

"In the last year have you taken on or had dealings with any new clients?"   90% of the questions could disappear for me.

Also took the opportunity to do my professional body AML training on line. Score in mid 90's, passed. My fails were all cases where i would have been more cautious than the examiner.