Anti-bribery and corruption agencies in the UK, France and Switzerland today announced a shared commitment to tackling international bribery and corruption, by way of a new taskforce intended to strengthen collaboration....more
3/21/2025
/ Anti-Bribery ,
Anti-Corruption ,
Bribery ,
Compliance ,
Corruption ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Deferred Prosecution Agreements ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Enforcement Authority ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
France ,
International Trade ,
Penalties ,
Switzerland ,
UK ,
White Collar Crimes
After a relatively quiet period, UK sanctions updates have picked up pace in recent weeks. We have seen the announcement of an enhanced partnership between US and UK sanctions agencies, updates to reporting requirements, the...more
12/3/2024
/ Asset Freeze ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Economic Sanctions ,
Memorandum of Understanding ,
Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Oil & Gas ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Russia ,
UK ,
Ukraine
In recent months there have been a number of significant developments in the UK sanctions space. This blog post summarises a few of them....more
The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) recently secured its first forfeiture of sanctioned funds. This was a landmark achievement for the NCA’s Combatting Kleptocracy Cell, which has only existed since 2022 and aims to...more
8/21/2024
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Asset Freeze ,
Asset Seizure ,
Economic Sanctions ,
Evasion ,
Financial Institutions ,
Forfeiture ,
National Crime Agency (NCA) ,
Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) ,
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) ,
Russia ,
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 (SAMLA) ,
UK
Companies House has been granted new powers to crack down on fraud, but whether it has the resources to take advantage of these and properly clean up the register of companies is questionable.
Originally published by...more
Combatting financial crime continues to be a key supervisory and enforcement priority for the FCA. The importance of this area was reiterated by the FCA’s February 2024 newsletter - Market Watch 77 - which sets out...more
On 11 December 2023, the UK’s Industry and Economic Security Minister announced the creation of a new UK agency dedicated to implementing and enforcing trade sanctions. The Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation (OTSI) will...more
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) launched in September a review of the treatment of domestic politically exposed persons (PEPs) by UK-regulated financial services firms. This review will look at firms’ arrangements...more
Companies faced with the decision of whether to voluntarily self-report sanctions breaches to law enforcement or sanctions enforcement agencies in the UK and the US can take some measure of comfort from recent comments made...more
10/16/2023
/ Compliance ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Economic Sanctions ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Export Controls ,
Good Faith ,
Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Sanction Violations ,
Self-Reporting ,
Serious Fraud Office (SFO) ,
U.S. Commerce Department ,
U.S. Treasury ,
UK ,
Voluntary Disclosure
Chartered accountants are accustomed to continuous oversight of their work by regulators. While regulatory supervision can often be a collaborative process, it does sometimes culminate in individual accountants and firms...more
6/7/2023
/ Accountants ,
Anti-Money Laundering ,
Auditors ,
Enforcement Authority ,
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ,
Financial Crimes ,
Financial Reporting Council (FRC) ,
Government Investigations ,
Investigations ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Statutory Penalties ,
Supervision ,
UK
We have been writing a lot recently about trends in the global market for fine art. One specific area that deserves attention is steps taken to stamp out laundering illicit funds via the art market, such as through auctions...more
4/20/2023
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Art ,
Art Auctions ,
Art Collections ,
Art Dealers ,
Art Sales ,
Due Diligence ,
FATF ,
Money Laundering ,
Registration Requirement ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
UK
The UK Government yesterday introduced a new corporate “failure to prevent fraud” offence into draft legislation, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (“the Bill”).
This is a significant development in UK...more
4/13/2023
/ Companies Act ,
Compliance ,
Corporate Crimes ,
Corporate Transparency Act ,
Enforcement ,
Financial Crimes ,
Fraud ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Serious Fraud Office (SFO) ,
UK ,
White Collar Crimes
The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) 2023/24 Business Plan (Business Plan) sets out the FCA’s aim to be viewed as a proactive, assertive and robust regulator, especially in its protection of retail consumers.
Released...more
The Online Safety Bill (the “OSB”) is back on the UK Government’s legislative agenda, this time with an important update relating to criminal liability of senior managers. Following some political wrangling, back-bench MPs...more
In November 2022, the UK Government announced that it had put in place UK GDPR ‘adequacy regulations’ in respect of South Korea (the Republic of Korea (“ROK”)). These new regulations will allow UK based organisations to...more
The U.K. Government recently introduced an updated draft of the Online Safety Bill (the “OSB”) to Parliament. The OSB is the U.K.’s first significant piece of legislation regulating online behavior. ...more
On March 1, 2022, the UK Government put forward the Economic Crime (Enforcement and Transparency) Bill. The stated aim of the legislation is to “crack down on dirty money in the UK and corrupt elites”, and it is designed to...more
3/11/2022
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Beneficial Owner ,
Economic Sanctions ,
Enforcement Authority ,
Financial Crimes ,
Financial Transactions ,
Money Laundering ,
Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Real Estate Transactions ,
Real Estate Transfers ,
Registration Requirement ,
Russia ,
Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs)
The UK’s National Audit Office (the “NAO”) has reported that an estimated 11% - a total of £4.9 billion out of £47 billion issued - of the 1.5 million loans granted under the Government’s COVID-19 Bounce Back Loan Scheme (the...more