Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 49: To ask the Minister for Finance the number of prosecutions brought for offences under the Central Bank Acts 1942 to 2004 in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. [4331/10]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy will be aware that in my role as Minister for Finance, I set out the legislative framework within which offences and penalties are contained. The Financial Regulator is empowered under the Central Bank Acts to initiate administrative sanctions procedures (ASP) where it suspects, on reasonable grounds, that a prescribed contravention may have been committed by a regulated financial service provider. Breaches of the obligations under the Market Abuse, Prospectus and Transparency Regulations are subject to a separate, but equivalent, sanctioning framework.

The following sanctions may be imposed: · Caution or reprimand;

· Direction to refund or withhold all or part of an amount of money charged or paid, or to be charged or paid, for the provision of a financial service;

· Monetary penalty (not exceeding €5,000,000 in the case of a corporate and unincorporated body, not exceeding €500,000 in the case of a person);

· Direction disqualifying a person from being concerned in the management of a regulated financial service provider;

· Direction to cease the contravention if it is found the contravention is continuing;

· Direction to pay all or part of the costs of the investigation and inquiry.

Obviously, it is important that where offence and penalty provisions are provided for in law that they are properly enforced. In this regard, the Financial Regulator has imposed fines amounting to €7,372,500, 7 Disqualifications ranging from 1 to 5 years and 19 Reprimands. Details of all sanctions in any given year are published annually in the Annual Report of the Financial Regulator.

The sanctions imposed to 2008 are broken down as follows: 2004 and 2005:

No sanctions were imposed in these years. 2006:

Sanctions were imposed under the ASP on 2 regulated financial service providers and upon 3 persons concerned in the management of those entities. These resulted in:

· 3 individuals being disqualified from being persons concerned in the management of regulated financial services provider for a specified period [5 years and 18 months]

2007:

Sanctions were imposed under the ASP on 4 regulated financial service providers.These resulted in:

3 Reprimands being imposed; and

1 Disqualification for a specified period (2 Years).

Sanctions were imposed on upon 1 Company and 1 individual under the Market Abuse Administrative Sanction Procedure. These resulted in a fine of €5,000 2008:

Sanctions were imposed under the ASP on 9 regulated financial service providers and upon 5 persons concerned in the management of those entities. These resulted in:

10 Fines being imposed which totalled €3.695 million

9 Reprimands

2 Disqualifications

A sanction was imposed on 1 Company under the Market Abuse Administrative Sanction Procedure. This resulted in a fine of €10,000.