Criminal Finances Bill likely to pass before dissolution of parliament

Criminal Finances Bill passes through parliament – awaits Royal Assent

The House of Lords rushed through the reporting state and third reading of the Criminal Finances Bill on 25 April and sent the bill back to the Commons to ratify a few minor amendments. The Commons quickly passed the amendments in 26 April. In introducing the bill, Baroness Williams of Trafford said:

Following the decision last week to call a general election, this is likely to be the last opportunity for the House to scrutinise this legislation. As noble Lords have said, it has had cross-party support throughout its parliamentary passage and I am very grateful to noble Lords, through the usual channels, for enabling us to take both Report and Third Reading today. Time is very short, but we all agree that this Bill will deliver valuable powers to fight money laundering, prevent the financing of terrorism and combat corruption. I hope we can maintain consensus on the way forward and return the Bill swiftly to the Commons.

The bill did in fact pass swiftly through the lords, amendments 6 to 12, 15 to 19 and 25 to 50 were agreed to, and the House of Commons will consider those amendments today (26 April). The cross-party amendment to require a register of the beneficial ownership of companies based in UK overseas territories like Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands did not pass. The lords felt that this issue should be debated again by the next parliament.

Timeline for implementation

The Bill provides for commencement of the provisions from a date to be appointed by the Treasury. It is expected that this will be from September 2017, to coincide with the start of the first exchange of information under the Common Reporting Standard.

Before implementation, organisations of any size and type need to ensure that they have reasonable procedures in place.

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.”