The Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation (OTSI) has published its Annual Review for 2025-26. OTSI was launched in October 2024 as part of wider efforts to enhance the effectiveness of UK sanctions in supporting domestic and global security.
This Annual Review reflects on the breadth of OTSI’s activities over the 2025-26 financial year in supporting compliance through our extensive engagement, guidance and outreach programme as well as licensing, and in tackling non-compliance by assessing breach reports received, taking forward enforcement action and further developing intelligence-led casework.
As our figures show, implementing and enforcing the Russia sanctions regime has been a key focus for OTSI in 2025-26. We continue to see Russia going to ever greater lengths to try to obtain the goods and services necessary to fuel its illegal war in Ukraine. OTSI, as the UK’s dedicated, expert trade sanctions implementation body, is committed to taking the actions necessary to disrupt malign activity and to promote the importance of compliance and due diligence.
We continue to build on the foundations we set in 2025-26. The implementation of new Sanctions End-Use Controls in May this year marks an important expansion of OTSI’s powers to tackle circumvention. This comes alongside the expansion of OTSI’s licensing remit in April to include exports of sanctioned goods and ancillary services.
As ever, OTSI welcomes our stakeholders’ feedback and engagement; we continue to strive to ensure that businesses receive a high-quality and efficient service. Upcoming sanctions workshops across the UK will offer businesses, in particular small and medium-sized businesses which may be less confident in navigating trade sanctions, opportunities to learn more about sanctions compliance and get practical support. In addition, we always welcome queries or comments via our webpage.
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