Balls Launches New Anti-Money Laundering Strategy

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

01 March 2007

Economic Secretary to the UK Treasury, Ed Balls, and Home Office Minister, Tony McNulty, on Wednesday launched the Government's strategy to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

The strategy, which has been drawn up with law enforcement agencies, policy departments and the private sector, sets out a series of new measures and key priorities for the future, designed to increase the use of the financial system as a weapon against international crime and terrorism.

Mr Balls explained that:

"The Government's over-riding goal is to protect its citizens and reduce the harm caused by crime and terrorism. The strategy published today sets out a comprehensive programme of financial measures, supported by UK-sponsored international standards that deter crime and terrorism; detect it when it happens, and disrupt those responsible and hold them to account".

The strategy published on Wednesday shows that money laundering and terrorist finance laws passed are already helping to save lives and bring criminals and terrorists to justice.

It also sets out new measures to promote the Government's key priorities to build on this success, including:

• Consultation with the charitable sector on measures to keep it safe from terrorist exploitation, with additional funding of GBP1 million to ensure the Charity Commission has the resources it needs to identify and disrupt terrorist exploitation of charities and protect donor confidence;
• Further steps to promote the proactive use of asset freezing powers, including the creation of a dedicated Treasury Asset Freezing Unit that will increase the expertise and operational focus that the Government is able to bring to bear on asset freezing in response to advice from law enforcement and security agencies;
• New steps to make financial tools a 'mainstream' part of the UK's approach to tackling crime and terrorism, including through new powers to increase their impact, a radical increase in targets for criminal asset recovery, and steps to ensure that Companies House data is fully utilised by law enforcement agencies;
• Developing further data-sharing between the public and private sectors, and better pooling of intelligence between different public authorities;
  reinforced measures to tackle the abuse of money service businesses, including by replacing the current registration system with a licensing system, underpinned by a new action plan for the supervisor, HMRC;
• Further steps to extend a risk-based approach to regulation - a key principle of the Government's better regulation agenda - including through the creation of a new money laundering supervisors' forum and a commitment to ensure authoritative guidance is available to all regulated industries;
• Reforms to reduce red-tape, including measures to simplify identification and due diligence checks within revised Money Laundering Regulations and a consultation on changes to the consent and tipping-off rules; and
• Fresh action at the international level, including through the UK's Presidency of the Financial Action Task Force from July 2007, to identify and tackle the most serious financial threats to international security and ensure an effective international architecture.

Welcoming the strategy as a core component of efforts to combat crime, Sir Stephen Lander, the Director General of the Serious Organised Crime Agency announced that:

"Tacking criminal finances and profits is central to SOCA's efforts to disrupt serious organised crime. We, therefore, welcome this strategy. It points to the results that have already been achieved and highlights the importance of Government agencies and private sector institutions working together effectively to address money laundering and terrorist financing. For our part, we are already actively pursuing that collaboration, and are looking to make full use of the powerful tools now available both to law enforcement and to regulators to undermine the criminal economy.''

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