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Beware of dirty laundry

30 January 2015 / Dr Tony Harvey
Issue: 7638 / Categories: Features , Training & education , Profession , Criminal
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Are you prepared for increased anti-money laundering compliance scrutiny, asks Dr Tony Harvey

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is stepping up its efforts to ensure solicitors’ firms do not become embroiled in money laundering activity. All firms must be aware of anti-money laundering (AML) issues and SRA Chief Executive Paul Philip has said that there will be “serious consequences” for those who fail to take their obligations seriously.

In November 2014 the SRA published its latest guidance Cleaning up: Law firms and the risk of money laundering. Money laundering is identified by the SRA as a key priority current risk in the latest SRA Risk Outlook 2014/15. The SRA is also alert to the criticisms levied against the legal profession for the poor quality of its suspicious activity reports (SARs) by the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) in their 2014 statement. The SRA’s AML focus initiative will involve focus visits to law firms to test that robust AML systems are in place, how widely these systems are

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NEWS
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
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