March 20 2019
In late June 2017, the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (MLR) came into force. The MLR include a range of investigatory powers that purport to empower regulatory authorities whilst widening the scope of entities and individuals that are subject to regulatory mandates.
In terms of the strength of the framework, the MLR appear to build on the UK’s ‘gold-standard’ framework amongst European financial centres. In early March of this year, however, a freedom of information request made to the Home Office revealed that there had been no prosecutions under the MLRs between its inception in 2017 and October 2018. Press articles asked, what is the explanation for this?