A PRECIOUS-METALS investment company has agreed with the finance regulator not to trade in the Island for a decade after closing its office here.
Goldmoney, which was based in Bond Street, has announced the ‘successful transition’ of its offices to Toronto, having ‘effectively discontinued all operating activity’ in Jersey in September.
The decision not to operate in the Island for ten years, a period proposed by regulator the Jersey Financial Services Commission, was made voluntarily by Goldmoney, and ‘in consequence and recognition of certain regulatory issues that had arisen prior to the closure of the Jersey operations and which had been the subject of ongoing discussions with the JFSC’, according to a statement from the JFSC. It is not clear what those issues were.
A statement released by Goldmoney says that the reason the company moved its operation to Canada was to ‘achieve cost efficiencies’ that would see it save $4 million per year.
Goldmoney’s statement said: ‘The closure of the Jersey office was completed on schedule in September.
‘Subsequently, the JFSC approached the company in relation to a matter that had occurred within the Jersey-based subsidiary during the 2016 to 2018 period.
‘To resolve this matter, the JFSC proposed that Goldmoney would not be permitted to operate in Jersey for a period of ten years, should it choose to re-establish a Jersey office.
‘Having made, in January 2021, the commercial decision to close its operations in Jersey, thereby making any plans to return there unlikely, the company considered its alternative courses of action and decided it was in the best interests of its shareholders to accept the JFSC’s proposal.’
In a statement to shareholders in June, Goldmoney said that Jersey-based staff who lost their jobs were offered ‘sizeable payouts beyond their original employment contracts’.
A spokeswoman for the JFSC said that it could not comment on the reasons why Goldmoney had agreed not to trade in the Island for ten years due to the legal position of the settlement reached with the firm.
She added: ‘This decision to close its Jersey operations was made voluntarily by GMI [Goldmoney] and, in its announcement about the decision, GMI stated that it was in accordance with its mandate to streamline its Goldmoney.com operations through operational and cost efficiencies.
‘In October 2021, shortly after the closure of the Jersey operations, in consequence and recognition of certain regulatory issues that had arisen prior to the closure of the Jersey operations and which had been the subject of ongoing discussions with the JFSC, GMI voluntarily agreed that for a ten-year period going forward it would not seek from the JFSC any form of licence to operate a regulated business in Jersey.
‘In the circumstances of this case, the issuing of a public statement by the JFSC about this voluntary agreement by GMI was not considered necessary.’
