Trading with the Enemy Act (UK, 1939)

The Trading with the Enemy Act 1939 is a United Kingdom statute enacted on 5 September 1939 governing specified dealings with the enemy, enemy-controlled businesses and enemy property. Its wartime legal categories and implementing instruments must be distinguished from modern sanctions designations. [1, long title and sections 1-3 and 7]

Provisions

Section 1 criminalises trading or attempting to trade with the enemy. Covered dealings include supplying or carrying goods, transmitting money and performing obligations for an enemy's benefit. The provision also recognises acts authorised by the relevant minister, Treasury or Board of Trade. Section 3 provides inspection and supervision powers over businesses. The statute therefore combines prohibition with administrative implementation and exceptions. [1, sections 1 and 3]

Section 2 refers to war, residence, place of business, incorporation and control. An individual is not an enemy merely because that individual is an enemy subject. Section 2(2) separately permits an order treating a specified person as an enemy. These are statutory tests, not a general inference that nationality or a foreign commercial connection proves prohibited conduct. Modern ownership and control rules require their own legal source. [1, section 2]

Section 7 permits orders requiring payment to a custodian, vesting enemy property or vesting a right to transfer it. The stated purposes include preventing payment to enemies and preserving property for arrangements at the conclusion of peace. Custodianship, vesting and a restriction on dealings have different legal effects; the existence of one power should not be reported as proof that every asset was confiscated. [1, section 7]

Wartime administration

The Bank of England's archival account records that it began assisting the Trading with the Enemy Department in October 1939, helped draw up the blacklist and acted between the Department and banks and other City organisations. It describes overlap with Defence (Finance) Regulations and consultation with Treasury over enemy-property and custodian arrangements. This is direct institutional evidence of administrative coordination. [3, printed page 806, PDF page 76]

The same account records the Bank's concern in late 1941 about divided responsibility and inadequate central supervision, followed by its view that later administrative changes improved matters. The record supports a qualified account of coordination, not a claim that the system worked uniformly or that the 1939 Act alone produced the economic effects of the wartime campaign. The archive reflects the Bank's perspective and does not measure the campaign's independent causal effect. [3, printed pages 806-807, PDF pages 76-77]

Continuing text and modern sanctions

The revised statute reviewed on 26 October 2026 retains substantial provisions and records no known outstanding effects, subject to the publisher's currency qualification. The Trading with the Enemy (Revocation) Order 2011, effective 15 December 2011, revoked the instruments in its schedule. They included custodian, enemy-territory and trade-authorisation instruments. The order did not repeal the whole 1939 Act. Conversely, survival of the Act does not establish that a particular historic order remains operative or that a present counterparty meets its enemy definition. [1, revision notice; 2, articles 1-2, schedule and explanatory note]

Modern UK sanctions have a separate statutory framework under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 and the instruments made under it. Any asserted restriction must be traced to its actual legal basis, scope, exceptions and duration. Historical use of the 1939 Act does not supply a contemporary designation or replace that instrument-specific inquiry. [4, sections 1-7; 1, sections 1-2 and 7]

See also

Trading with the Enemy Act (UK, 1914) · Statutory blacklist (trading-with-the-enemy list) · Ministry of Economic Warfare (United Kingdom, 1939-1945) · Navicert system (1939) · Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act (UK, 2018)

Sources

1. United Kingdom, *Trading with the Enemy Act 1939*, c 89, revised text, 5 September 1939, sections 1-3 and 7, reviewed 26 October 2026.
2. United Kingdom, *Trading with the Enemy (Revocation) Order 2011*, SI 2011/2923, made 5 December 2011, effective 15 December 2011, articles 1-2 and schedule.
3. Bank of England Archive, *The Bank of England, 1939-1945*, Part II, Appendix VIII, 'Relations with the Trading with the Enemy Department, Board of Trade', M5/535, reference F.E.231.9, printed pages 806-807, PDF pages 76-77. Institutional archival account, accessed 26 October 2026.
4. United Kingdom, *Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018*, revised text, sections 1-7, retained and reviewed 25 October 2026. That access date is preserved; it is not a fresh 26 October retrieval.