The Criminal Finances Act 2017, which received Royal Assent last week, contains the largest expansion of UK corporate criminal liability since the Bribery Act 2010 and one of the most significant overhauls of money laundering and proceeds of crime legislation in the last decade. Of particular note for financial services is the new strict liability criminal offence of failing to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion by ‘associated persons’. The offence has extra-territorial effect and will catch foreign firms and foreign tax evasion (as well as UK firms and UK tax evasion). Banks need to undertake thorough risk assessments to inform the creation of prevention policies and procedures to benefit from the only defence – that of having ‘reasonable’ prevention procedures in place.
May 04, 2017 at 07:45AM
from Anti-Corruption Digest
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