The UK\u2019s Money Laundering Regulations 2017 (as amended) are in place to prevent and detect money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF). These regulations require firms in the regulated sector, including law firms, to have robust policies and procedures in place to identify, assess, and manage the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing. Failure to comply with these regulations can result in penalties, fines and reputational damage to the Firm and individual lawyers concerned.<\/p>\n
Some independent legal professionals are authorised and regulated directly by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) because they conduct regulated financial services activities: for example, advising clients directly on investments activities such as stocks and shares in the course of their Recognised Professional Body (RPB) status. Those professionals should also consider the Joint Money Laundering Steering Group’s (JMSLG) guidance.<\/p>\n
In accordance with Sections 330(8) and 331(7) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA), section 21A(6) of the Terrorism Act 2000 (TACT), and Regulation 86(2)(b) of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017, a court is required to consider compliance with these provisions in assessing whether a person committed an offence or took all reasonable steps and exercised all due skill, care and diligence to avoid committing an offence.<\/p>\n
Law firms, in particular, have a number of specific obligations under the UK Money Laundering Regulations. These include:<\/p>\n
It is important for law firms to take their responsibilities under the UK Money Laundering Regulations seriously and to have appropriate policies and procedures in place to comply with the regulations. This will not only help to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing but will also help to protect the firm and staff from potential penalties and reputational damage.<\/p>\n
It is however recognised that there are several challenges that law firms face in complying with the UK Money Laundering Regulations, including:<\/p>\n
Effecta Compliance can assist law firms in addressing these challenges by providing a range of services, including:<\/p>\n
Outsourced Compliance Support can provide law firms with additional support by taking on some of the responsibility of Money Laundering compliance and ensuring that your firm remains up-to-date with current regulatory requirements.<\/p>\n
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[1]<\/a> The United Kingdom (UK) imposes financial sanctions and these are implemented through a combination of statutory instruments (UK regulations) and primary legislation:<\/p>\n The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) is part of HM Treasury, which is the authority for the implementation of financial sanctions in the UK: www.gov.uk\/government\/organisations\/office-of-financial-sanctions-implementation<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> The United Nations (UN) imposes financial sanctions and requires member states to implement them through Resolutions passed by the UN Security Council:\u00a0 www.un.org\/securitycouncil\/sanctions\/information<\/p>\n Click here to download this insight as a PDF<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Background The UK\u2019s Money Laundering Regulations 2017 (as amended) are in place to prevent and detect money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF). These regulations require firms in the regulated sector, including law firms, to have robust policies and procedures in place to identify, assess, and manage the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing.… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1642,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.effectacompliance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.effectacompliance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.effectacompliance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.effectacompliance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.effectacompliance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1617"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.effectacompliance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1648,"href":"https:\/\/www.effectacompliance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617\/revisions\/1648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.effectacompliance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.effectacompliance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.effectacompliance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.effectacompliance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n