On the 05 may 2016 12:10 the JFSC issued the following letter about Reviewing business relating to Mossack Fonseca – 18 May latest – this is where your record keeping and retrieval will be tested to the limit.

Dear Sir or Madam

You will doubtless be aware of the recent, and expected further, publication of client information relating to Mossack Fonseca, the wide publicity that this has received so far and the public comments made by various interested parties, including government representatives around the world.

The Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC) has to date been content to rely upon registered persons to be appropriately aware of related issues and the extent to which these directly relate to their own businesses, and to take appropriate action where needed; various firms have advised us of these in normal course.

Such is the extent of the attention that this matter has received globally, and the consequent potential need for the Island to be able to comment authoritatively – in general terms – on the extent to which this has serious implications for Jersey’s finance sector, it now seems appropriate to seek specific input from all potentially affected firms.

You are therefore asked, please, to input to the JFSC where any of the below questions are relevant:

1. If your firm has not already completed a comprehensive review of its business records and database to establish whether any business has been placed with, or received from, Mossack Fonseca, including the establishment of companies by it, do you intend to do this and, if so, by when? (Where this applies, please consider the below questions when completing of such exercise, and input to the Commission if appropriate).
2. If you do not intend conducting such a review, please give the reasons for this. At what level has that decision been made?
3. Have any issues of concern, or any possible potential concern, or any required actions been identified in respect of any business conducted in any form with Mossack Fonseca directly or indirectly? If so, please advise the details, including what action has been taken directly in these respects and any wider changes made to the firm’s control environment.
4. Where business introductions have been accepted from Mossack Fonseca, has any form of reliance been placed on it, as permitted by Article 16 of the Money Laundering (Jersey) Order 2008
5. In any business conducted with or connected in any way to Mossack Fonseca, have any PEPs been involved? If so, please state how many.

Where it seems relevant to do so, please add further explanatory comment to any answers provided.

Please note that:

›          If your firm has already submitted related input, you are still asked to consider the specific questions shown and respond appropriately;

›          Any response to this enquiry does not replace the legal requirement to report suspicion of money laundering to the JFCU; and

›          In respect of confidentiality matters, answers to the survey will be considered by the JFSC to be “restricted information” for the purposes of the relevant regulatory Law under which your firm is registered.

Where required, please respond by email to k.andrieux@jerseyfsc.org within two weeks (by 18 May latest).

This letter is signed off with Kind regards from John Harris, Director General