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12 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 31 MAY 2026 NEWS No out of court settlements reached for sanctions breaches yet after law change THE Sanctions Monitoring Board has not received requests for out of court settlements from individuals, who have breached international or EU sanctions, MaltaToday is informed. The law was amended last No- vember to allow individuals or companies in breach of sanctions to reach settlements before pros- ecution, or after charges have been filed. The breach of sanc- tions remains a criminal offence. In replies to questions sent by MaltaToday, the chair of the monitoring board, Neville Aq- uilina, said no applications have been received thus far from either individuals or entities requesting settlement. Article 12 of the National Inter- est (Enabling Powers) Act allows for pre-prosecution settlements, while Article 13 allows accused who are undergoing court pro- ceedings to reach a settlement. Settlements are conditional on payment of relevant fines and the strengthening of internal due diligence processes as may be the case. "No settlement agreements have been concluded, no settle- ment amounts have been deter- mined or paid, and no persons or entities have benefited from this mechanism," Aquilina told Mal- taToday as regards pre-prosecu- tion settlements. Similarly, no out-of-court set- tlements have been concluded in relation to persons currently un- dergoing criminal proceedings. "No criminal proceedings have been discontinued or suspended on this basis," he said. Aquilina added that both Arti- cle 12 and Article 13 are "strictly conditional" mechanisms, "not automatic entitlements". "The mechanisms may only be activated where the statutory criteria are met and where the Sanctions Monitoring Board de- termines, on a case-by-case basis, that a settlement is appropriate in the interests of effective enforce- ment," he emphasised. He added that the law establish- es sanctions breaches as "serious criminal offences, enforceable before the courts, with significant penalties for both natural and le- gal persons". "The absence of settlement agreements to date should there- fore not be interpreted as a gap in enforcement, but rather as a reflection of the fact that these mechanisms are exceptional tools within a broader enforcement system that remains primarily judicial in nature," Aquilina said. He insisted that any settlement is "expressly premised on an ad- mission of guilt", making it close- ly aligned with the criminal jus- tice process. "The amendments introduced also ensure that the criminal of- fences are not time barred should the person concerned be in de- fault of the agreement," Aquilina said. Justifying the introduction of what is an effective administrative procedure to allow out of court settlements, Aquilina insisted the new mechanism functions as an "alternative procedural pathway within the judicial system rather than a mechanism operating out- side it or in parallel to it". "This mechanism is widely used in the context of the criminal justice system in other countries including European countries," he noted. Aquilina said the settlement framework includes a mandatory remedial action programme that obliges the individual or com- pany concerned to enhance its due diligence practices and ad- dress the underlying compliance shortcomings identified. All this is done under the supervision of the Sanctions Monitoring Board. The board is established within the Foreign Ministry and is com- prised of 18 officials representing different ministries and public authorities. The chair is appointed by the Foreign Ministry and the board includes as its members repre- sentatives of the Office of the Attorney General, the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, the Security Services, the police, the Central Bank of Malta and the Malta Financial Services Author- ity. KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt The EU has imposed tougher sanctions on Russia after the latter's invasion of Ukraine