The Criminal Finances Act 2017 is to come into force this autumn, introducing a series of measures to tackle money-laundering and other economic crimes, the Solicitor-General, Robert Buckland MP, has confirmed.
Speaking at the Cambridge Symposium on Economic Crime this week, Buckland said the new measures will include the creation of Unexplained Wealth Orders, requiring suspects to explain where their money comes from. Law enforcement agencies will be given enhanced seizure and forfeiture powers, and there will be a new criminal offence for corporations to fail to prevent staff facilitating tax evasion.
Robert Amaee, partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and the former head of anti-corruption and proceeds of crime at the Serious Fraud Office, said: ‘The Act introduces some potentially game-changing measures.
‘An Unexplained Wealth Order, for example, is a novel legal tool that makes it considerably more straightforward for law enforcement to take away property from those suspected of wrongdoing.’
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