General

This notice is to provide notification that, in light of the war in Ukraine, any application involving individuals, entities or investments connected with Russia is ineligible for consideration through any of the Commission’s fast-track application regimes. The Commission will expect any application to be accompanied by reputable legal advice confirming the individuals and entities involved have...

The Commission is monitoring the situation and has been, through its 2021 thematic work on sanctions screening and other interactions, encouraging firms to prioritise their sanctions monitoring and assessment of sanctions risks. The Commission requests that all firms check whether they maintain any accounts or otherwise have any kind of relationship with the persons referred to in sanctions...

The Commission has today issued its report on the thematic review of reinsurance and other forms of risk transfer by licensed insurers. The review was undertaken during the latter part of 2021. A copy of the thematic review can be found by clicking here . Broadly, the thematic review uncovered a number of areas of good practice, for example where some firms have high quality reinsurance contracts...

The Guernsey Financial Services Commission has issued today a consultation paper (“CP”) on Bailiwick Mind and Management in relation to the Fiduciary and Investment sectors. The CP sets out proposals to issue guidance under the Fiduciaries Law 1 and the PoI Law 2 to clarify that maintenance of local mind and management is a relevant factor in the Commission’s assessment of the prudent conduct of...

The Commission has elected Baroness Couttie as its Vice-Chairman. Philippa has held leadership roles over the past 30 years in both financial services and politics. She founded, built up and successfully sold two businesses as well as being the Chief Executive of a subsidiary of a publicly quoted company, a director of Citigroup and Leader of Westminster City Council. She sits in the House of...

On Wednesday 26 January, the Commission reported that it had become aware of a website that had been established cloning the Commission’s own website. Since becoming aware of the matter, the Commission submitted abuse notifications to the domain registrar and the hosting provider as well as reporting the URL as malicious to the appropriate authorities. The cloned website’s domain has been taken...

The Guernsey Financial Services Commission has become aware that a website has been established cloning the Commission’s own website (The GFSREA – Guernsey Financial Services and Regulatory Enforcement Authority – www.gfsrea.org). The Commission’s website domain is www.gfsc.gg The Guernsey Financial Services and Regulatory Enforcement Authority’s website appears to closely resemble the Commission...

On the 20th day of January 2022, the Commission imposed a discretionary financial penalty of £196,000 on Robert Archibald Gilchrist Sinclair and prohibited him from holding the position of controller,* director, partner, manager, money laundering reporting officer and money laundering compliance officer for a period of 5.6 years. The exemption set out in section 3(1)(g) of the Fiduciaries Law...

Philip Nicol-Gent, Senior Counsel at the Commission, has been appointed as Chair of the ICAEW’s regulatory board. This is the independent board responsible for oversight of ICAEW’s regulatory and disciplinary work, undertaken by the Professional Standards Department, to ensure it is carried out in the public interest. Philip has been the Vice-Chair of the ICAEW’s regulatory board since May 2017.