Lawyers need to be at the forefront of preventing dirty money entering the UK. But time and again lawyers have been found to be some of the most prominent professionals at the heart of laundering schemes, or facilitating transactions for clients against whom there are widespread allegations of corruption.
Effective anti-money laundering (AML) regulation and supervision are crucial for ensuring lawyers step up to play a proactive role as gatekeepers to prevent dirty funds undermining the UK’s financial integrity.
In 2022 Spotlight on Corruption published a detailed report on whether the UK legal sector was being adequately supervised for money laundering. We found that despite high rates of non-compliance there were low levels of supervisory enforcement in the sector, and that the body set up to drive consistency in supervision – the Office for Professional Body AML Supervision – had not been able to raise standards sufficiently across the board.
In this report, we review the latest statutory reports on money laundering from legal sector AML supervisors to understand what progress has been made.
- Click here to read the report
Broken Record
Latest round of legal sector AML reports shows it is time for reform
