The General Election and Compliance: What are Labour’s plans for sanctions?

Labour is way ahead in the polls and largely predicted to win the UK’s July 4 general election. What has the Labour party said about sanctions and how might it affect your business?

David Lammy, shadow foreign secretary, set out his party’s plans for Britain’s fight against financial crime at a UK hosted summit to highlight the issue. At the summit, he warned that allies in the US, Ukraine, Africa and the Caribbean have raised concerns about the UK’s approach to corruption and perceived loopholes in its sanctions regime: “Our security partners see us not only failing, but too often enabling Russian kleptocrats to grow stronger.”

Labour have pledged to crack down on dirty money in the UK. As part of their plan for whistleblowing reform, Labour have pledged to give financial rewards to whistleblowers who expose stolen assets, sanctions breaches and recover misappropriated funds. Specifically, they’ve proposed to punish white-collar enablers of money laundering, offer rewards of up to £250,000 to whistleblowers who identify sanctions breaches, and look at new mechanisms to ban such people from entering the UK.

See more about Labour’s plans for whistleblowing reforms here.

Additionally, as part of the party’s plans to tackle tax evasion and money laundering, senior Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Anti-Corruption has demanded more action against legal tax avoidance and loopholes. She wants criminal prosecutions of aggressive tax avoidance, and is likely to push for more corporate criminal sanctions against tax avoiders.

See more about Labour’s plans for tackling tax evasion here and anti-money laundering here.

The past two years have already been a historic and transformative period for the use of financial sanctions on both the global and UK levels, with Western nations launching an unprecedented line of sanctions against Russia as a result of its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Recent conflicts such as the Hamas-Israel war in response to Hamas’s October 7th massacre, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as events in Iran, China and other countries have grabbed global headlines. These events have sparked waves of new laws and regulations around the world, from sanctions to tougher economic crime compliance rules.

All businesses must comply with financial and trade sanctions and companies must be able to prove that they are properly screening for sanctions. Failure to comply with screening requirements can carry stiff penalties reaching into the millions per infraction and any sanctions breach, even accidental, is a crime.

Prioritising compliance in these areas can help businesses uphold the principles of transparency, accountability, and respect for international law, ensuring that their efforts contribute positively to the well-being of affected populations while mitigating the risk of inadvertent support for sanctioned entities or activities.

Compliance and the UK General Election – Special Webinar

Every sector could be impacted and every area of compliance is likely to be reviewed by the next government. From overhauls of financial services regulation, reviews of data protection law, closer alignment with EU regulations and an expansion of health and safety protections, the next parliament will see compliance at the centre of the regulatory agenda.

With everything from whistleblowing reform to overhauls of corporate governance, new employment rights like menopause leave and expanded equal pay rules, alongside crackdowns on tax evasion and expansion of the money laundering regulations, organisations large and small should prepare for the outcome of the general election.

This webinar will cover:

What the main parties are pledging on key compliance areas
Potential changes to legislation including the Equality Act, sexual harassment and employment rights
Expected legislation on AML, bribery, sanctions, fraud and economic crime
Possible expansion of regulations around GDPR, AI and health and safety
Preparing your organisation for future regulatory changes and new requirements

Webinar registration

How are you managing your GDPR compliance requirements?

GDPR added a significant compliance burden on DPOs and data processors. Data breaches must be reported to the authorities within 72 hours, each new data processing activity needs to be documented and Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA) must be carried out for processing that is likely to result in a high risk to individuals. Penalties for breaching GDPR can reach into the tens of millions of Euros.

“In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”