FHDDS52120 | Penalties, sanctions and offences: penalties – policy: Multiple or repeated contraventions

The legislation (Regulation 15 of the Fulfilment Businesses Regulations 2018) simply specifies an amount of penalty - £3,000 or £500 as set out above - ‘for each contravention’. This allows for a degree of flexibility in some circumstances in relation to calculating the amount of penalty due.

Example: A fulfilment business has 10 branches sited around the UK. Three sites fail to meet the scheme requirements for customer due diligence and record keeping, which would make the business liable for three £500 penalties. The business is generally careless about checking the credibility of its customers. It may therefore be justifiable and proportionate to charge three separate penalties.

However, in some cases it may be appropriate to treat multiple errors as a single contravention.

Example: A new fulfilment business makes a number of minor record-keeping breaches in their first few months of trading. Each breach could be liable to a £500 penalty, but you may consider that this would produce a disproportionate result in terms of the total penalty. You could therefore decide to treat the errors as a single contravention and issue one fixed penalty.