A new Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill will provide greater protections for consumers and businesses

A new Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (“Economic Crime Bill”) was outlined in the Queen’s speech which will give further and stronger powers to tackle illicit finance, reduce economic crime and provide greater protections for consumers and businesses.

This follows on from the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022, which received Royal Assent on 15th March, following an expedited passage through Parliament as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This Act gave authorities powers to sanction Russian individuals and entities in line with similar measures imposed by the European Union and the United States.

The Government stated that it wants to “crack down on the kleptocrats, criminals and terrorists who abuse our open economy, ensuring we drive out dirty money from the UK”. This substantial piece of legislation covers four main components:

  •  Companies House Reform – giving it additional powers to check, remove or decline information submitted, or already on, the Company Register to stop people from fraudulently registering companies.
  • Enhanced verification requirements – for people who manage, own, and control companies and other UK registered entities, and strengthening transparency requirements to wind up and tackle abuse of limited partnerships
  • Crypto asset seizure – creating new powers allowing authorities to seize cryptocurrency and other crypto assets more quickly and easily in an attempt to discourage ransomware attacks, where such assets are widely used as a medium of exchange.
  • Information sharing – new measures to allow businesses in the financial sector to share information more effectively.

At Perpetuity our recent research and webinars, has covered a range of related issues on economic crime. For further discussion, the following may be of interest:

Reports:

Short article: Identifying Covid-19 frauds and scams

Webinars: