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17th November 2016

Government: Priorities for Financial Crime

This week on 14 November 2016, the Government published a speech given by the Home Secretary at last week’s Financial Crime Conference hosted by the FCA.

Amber Rudd MP, (the Home Secretary) gave a speech that highlighted the Government’s priorities with regards to financial crime.

In particular Ms Rudd’s speech indicated that the Government:

• Plans to deliver the Criminal Finances Bill, with Royal Assent in the Spring of next year with powers commencing later in 2017;
• Is committed to creating a new beneficial ownership register for overseas companies;
• Will continue to work with Australia, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and the United States to deliver their London Anti-Corruption Summit commitments on the creation of public-private information sharing partnerships;
• Through the National Crime Agency is working to have the new International Anti-Corruption Co-ordination Centre (IACCC) up and operational by the end of April next year. It is proposed that the IACCC will be instrumental in tackling large multi-jurisdictional corruption cases.

Tackling frustrations within the industry:

Ms Rudd acknowledged that many firms want to be able to share information more freely so that they can better understand and address and risks – and that many firms have become frustrated by the “seeming lack of operational outcomes that result from the suspicious activity reports” that they give to law enforcement agencies.

The new Criminal Finances Bill will help address these frustrations within the industry by giving firms immunity from civil and criminal liability “when they share information directly with one another on money laundering and terrorist financing.”

Ms Rudd continued in acknowledging that this is what firms have said they need for the new Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Taskforce (JMLIT) to work more effectively, hence the government is legislating to provide this.

The new Bill also aims to enhance the suspicious activity reports regime meaning that courts will be able to freeze funds for longer while law enforcement agencies can continue to gather evidence required to take any action. For cases of grand corruption, this is often crucial wince much of the evidence is often overseas and additional time is needed to be able to disrupt the flow of criminal money.

It seems that the Government, like the FCA, is highly focused on tackling Financial Crime within the UK. As Ms Rudd summarised in her speech

 “We must make the UK a hostile environment for fraudsters and those seeking to move, hide and use the proceeds of crime and corruption.”

Government Priorities for Tackling Financial Crime