The UK’s new economic crime and corporate transparency bill 

On 26^th October 2023, the government enacted the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act. This Act was deemed necessary to address the exposure of the UK to the risk of fraud and money laundering.  For many years the UK has been one of the world’s largest and most open economies. Although this has made it attractive for global businesses, it has also increased its exposure to organized crime and the abuse of its financial system.

This Act attempts to try and reduce the ‘dirty money’ available for serious and organized crime organizations in the UK and reduce their facilities for overseas corruption.  Additionally, it aims to crack down on kleptocrats, criminals and terrorist who threaten to weaken the UKs reputation as a legitimate place to do business. 

Some of the key features of this Act are:

• Reforms to Companies House.
  • Introduce ID verification for all new and existing registered company directors, significant shareholders, and those delivering documents.
  • Broaden the Registrar’s powers to be able to check, remove or decline information submitted, or already on, the companies register.
  • Improve financial information on the register.
  • Provide Companies House with more effective investigation and enforcement powers.
  • Enhance the protection of personal information.
  • Clamp down on misuse of corporate entities.

• Reforms to prevent the abuse of limited partnerships.
  • Tighten registration.
  • Require a connection with the UK.
  • Increase transparency requirements.
  • Enable the Registrar to deregister limited partnerships.

• Additional powers to seize and recover suspected criminal crypto assets.

• Reforms to give businesses more confidence to share information to tackle money laundering and other economic crime.
  • Enable businesses to share information more easily.
  • Enable proactive intelligence gathering by law enforcement.
  • Strengthen the ability of the National Crime Agency’s Financial Intelligence Unit to obtain information from businesses.

For more information on the UK and other European markets, read Ideagen Audit Analytics recent report on European regulated exchanges and listed company audits.

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