By Jamie Boucher, Eytan Fisch, Ryan Junck, Elizabeth Robertson and William Sweet Jr., Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP (May 4, 2017, 8:33 PM EDT) -- The Policing and Crime Act 2017* introduced a series of major changes to the U.K. financial sanctions regime. The changes, which came into force on April 1, 2017, included the creation of new civil powers for HM Treasury's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation to impose monetary penalties on companies and individuals for breaching financial sanctions. On April 3, pursuant to its obligation under the act, OFSI released new guidance on its approach for imposing monetary penalties. The guidance helps clarify OFSI's intended case-assessment and penalty-quantification processes. The guidance also confirms that OFSI intends to exercise its new powers in line with the approach to enforcement that has been adopted by the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the United States. While there are clear similarities between the guidance and OFAC's Economic Sanctions Enforcement Guidelines, companies that engage in activities that are subject to U.S. and U.K. financial sanctions should also understand the important differences between the two penalty regimes....