Blog
The FCA’s Enforcement Watch 2 and what it means for the financial services industry
James Alleyne
20 September 2019
AML: HMRC flexes enforcement muscle to the tune of £7.8 million
In September 2019, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) published its list of businesses that have not complied with the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 (MLR 2017) for the tax year 2019 to 2020. Within this, it revealed that it has fined Touma Foreign Exchange Ltd £7.8 million for a wide range of serious failures under the Money Laundering Regulations.
30 August 2019
SFO guidance on co-operation: more carrot than stick?
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) was established to investigate and prosecute cases involving serious or complex fraud, a mission that inevitably leads it to the corporate sector. In 2010, it was given two significant tools in dealing with companies: a simple route to corporate criminal liability for bribery cases in the Bribery Act 2010 (the stick); and a means of incentivising a company fixed with corporate criminal liability to co-operate with the SFO by entering into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) and so avoiding a conviction (the carrot).
20 May 2019
Crunching the numbers: is the National Crime Agency right to seek additional funding?
As the National Crime Agency (“NCA”) releases its 2019 National Strategy Assessment, NCA Director General Lynne Owens is calling for an extra £2.7 billion in law enforcement funding to combat serious and organised crime over the next three years. With 4,542 active UK-based organised crime groups and 181,000 UK people involved in serious and organised crime, law enforcement agencies are starting to creak under the strain. In this blog, we review the National Strategy Assessment’s analysis of current trends in financial offending and we look at the authorities’ response within their current funding arrangements. Against that background, we consider the argument for greater investment in law enforcement capacity.
4 April 2019
HMRC turns to companies to police tax evasion
New provisions introduced in September 2017 (under the Criminal Finances Act 2017(ss45-46) to allow the prosecution of a company or partnership for failing to prevent its employees and other “associated persons” from facilitating tax evasion in the UK and abroad, were heralded as a game-changer in terms of reducing tax fraud and closing the tax gap (see our related blog - Will the new corporate offence of failure to prevent tax evasion and enhanced international tax transparency change the landscape for tax investigations?).
13 March 2019
“Carrying on as we are is not a prudent option” says the Competition and Market Authority
The Competition and Market Authority’s (CMA) Business Plan 2019-20 was presented as necessarily high level with a work programme and priorities contingent on the outcome of Brexit (see related blog: Brexit uncertainty pervades Competition and Markets Authority Annual Plan 2019-20).