The government of the UK has issued a Circular regarding the use of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) in private civil litigation matters. The aim is to provide guidance to help protect the firms that file SARs and the subjects of these SARs.
British law requires businesses in the AML-regulated sector to report any knowledge/suspicion of ML to the National Crime Agency (NCA). Individual SARs submitted to the NCA are not in the public domain since they contain potentially sensitive material. SAR confidentiality is important to protect the reporters and subjects of SARs and to safeguard ongoing or future judicial investigations. Moreover, SAR-related disclosures could be considered as an offense of prejudicing an investigation.
Therefore, reporters should not refer to SARs when documenting their internal decision-making processes. The Circular further lays out the procedure an SAR reporter must follow if compelled to disclose SARs in civil proceedings. In such situations, reporters should first promptly contact the NCA. They should also prepare a list of the SARs they believe to be disclosable and the reasons why they may need to be disclosed.
Source: Government of the UK