Assignment task:
Imagine that you are a compliance officer at CryptoFin and the board has requested a letter of advice that details whether or not the company will be regarded as an accountable institution in terms of the Act.
Come up with a brief letter to the board that outlines whether or not the company must register with the Financial Intelligence Centre as an accountable institution. In order to craft this letter, you will need to consult the FIC Act using each of the five dimensions of the purposive approach: language, context and structure, teleology, history, and comparison. Before writing the letter, consider the following questions to guide your interpretation:
What is the purpose and intention of the FIC Act (i.e. what social misbehaviour does the Act aim to regulate?) You may want to conduct independent research to fully explore this question.
How does the FIC Act define an accountable institution?
Does CryptoFin match the definition of an accountable institution as outlined by the FIC Act?
By drawing on other sections and elements of the Act, are there sections that are relevant to CryptoFin and the service offered by the app? Focus particularly on what accountable institutions are required to do in terms of the Act.
Your letter should not exceed eight hundred words in total. You are allowed to quote from external sources to substantiate your answers, as long as you specify what your sources are. If you draw on legislation, state the name of each piece of legislation. If you draw on non-legal sources, include the resource title, author name, year of publication, and URL (if applicable). Use the following layout to structure your letter:
Interpretation of the FIC Act based on the five dimensions of legal interpretation (Max. three hundred words)
Description of an accountable institution (Max. one hundred words)
Categorisation of CryptoFin in relation to Schedule 1 of the FIC Act (Max. two hundred fifty words)
Recommendation for the board (Max. one fifty words)
References (if applicable)