Economic crime plan

The UK government’s second economic crime plan aims to reduce money laundering, sanctions evasion and fraud, combat kleptocracy and recover more criminal assets.

The three-year plan contains 43 actions to “strengthen” the UK’s economic crime supervisory regime. The reforms include:

• greater government oversight to “ensure effectiveness and compliance” with the Money Laundering Regulations 2017
• increasing information sharing between the public and private sectors

The plan is partly funded by the economic crime levy, which will be collected from anti-money laundering regulated businesses – including law firms – from April 2023.

Small firms have been exempted from the levy, following our warnings about its potential impact.

Our view

We welcome the publication of the plan as a step towards strengthening the UK’s response to economic crime.

“Solicitors continue to play an important role in the public-private partnership in tackling economic crime,” said Law Society president Lubna Shuja.

“The profession invests significant resources in tackling money laundering and financial crime.

“Encouraging greater information and intelligence sharing will also help to better identify and target criminality to ensure that the UK is a hostile place for illicit finance.”

What we’re doing for you

We contributed to the drafting of the plan as an anti-money laundering supervisor for the legal profession.

We will continue working with the government to deliver the plan through a new approach to public-private prioritisation.

This includes joint priorities to maximise public and private resources to prevent, detect and disrupt economic crime, as well as the ambitious reform of the UK’s supervisory regime.