The QFC Authority (QFCA) has announced that it has imposed a public censure on Encryptics Data Security and the Senior Executive Function and Director of the Firm on June 4, 2020. In a statement, the QFCA said it has issued the public censure against the Firm and Siham Boulbadaoui, its Senior Executive Function and Director, for each contravening General Rule 8A.9 and 8A.12 of the QFCA Rules, being relevant requirements.
QFCA investigated the Firm and found that the Firm and Boulbadaoui had each contravened two relevant requirements imposed by the QFCA under Part 5 of the QFCA Rules, such as failing to provide information to the Companies Registration Office (CRO) of Beneficial Ownership (BO) and information regarding their Nominee Directors and Corporate Directors (if applicable); and failure to comply with a written notice to provide the QFCA with documents and information in relation to BO, nominee directors and nominee shareholders.
As with all enforcement investigations QFCA considers, amongst other things, the impact of the imposition of a financial penalty.
Whilst QFCA considered the contravention to be serious and would normally consider the imposition of a financial penalty, the QFCA considered a public censure was reasonable considering all the relevant circumstances, namely: there was no indication neither the Firm nor Boulbadaoui made a profit or avoided a loss as a result of the contraventions; there are indications the Firm is no longer operating and imposition of a financial penalty was likely to be ineffective; a public censure is an effective deterrent because it will deter other QFC Firms and their officers from being named in public for non-compliance with Money Laundering or Terrorist Financing (ML/TF) matters, and a public censure will educate the QFC community about the importance of ML/TF compliance issues.
Raed Al Emadi, Chief Commercial Officer of the QFCA, said: “This is a serious matter, but exceptional circumstances mean a public censure is the appropriate and proportionate response. In this particular case a public censure was additionally imposed on the Senior Executive Function and Director because there are indications they are still in the State of Qatar and actively avoided the QFCA”.
