The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) Regulatory Authority has banned the former director of Horizon Crescent Wealth (HCW), Robert Sharratt, from carrying out any function for firms in the QFC.
The regulator has also imposed a financial penalty of QAR548,121 (£123,671, $150,541, €143,405) on Sharratt.
In 2019, the Regulatory Authority took disciplinary action against trust administrator HCW and fined the business QAR30m (£6.8m, $8.2m, €7.8m) for serious legal and regulatory breaches of the anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing laws and the Financial Services Regulations.
The financial penalty and prohibition imposed on Sharratt follows an investigation, which found that he “contravened” the following requirements during the period from 1 January 2016 to 30 August 2017:
- Failing to ensure that HCW’s policies, procedures, systems, and controls appropriately and adequately addressed the requirements of the Anti-Money Laundering Law No.(4) of 2010; and
- Failing to ensure that HCW developed, established, and maintained effective AML/CFT policies, procedures, systems and controls, document those policies.
The Qatari regulator said: “The actions taken by the regulatory authority against Mr Sharratt, as a member of HCW’s senior management emphasises the standards required of a licensed firm and its senior management to ensure effective compliance with regulatory authority rules, including those rules required to ensure that firms have effective systems and controls in place to combat illicit finance.”
