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ARTICLE · 09 AUGUST 2019

Anti-Money Laundering Update

DAC Beachcroft LLP
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Anyone following the SRA's social media accounts will know that preventing money laundering is a hot topic for the Regulator. Its #staySHARP campaign

United KingdomGovernment, Public Sector
Catrin Davies
Catrin Davies
Tom Bedford
Tom Bedford

Anyone following the SRA's social media accounts will know that preventing money laundering is a hot topic for the Regulator. Its #staySHARP campaign, telling firms they SHould Assess, Report and Protect has been prompted by the fact that as many as four in ten law firms are flouting the anti-money laundering regime.

This may come as a surprise to the profession when adherence to the Money Laundering Regulations has become a fact of life for most solicitors.

However, statistics released by the National Crime Agency show that legal professionals submitted less than 1% of the total Suspicious Activity Reports (so-called SARs, designed to alert the Agency to actual or potential money laundering) in 2017. A quarter of those SARs arise from residential conveyancing, an increase of 66% in the last two years.

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