SRA fires warning shots over complacency

The Solicitor’s Regulation Authority has stated that whilst it feels legal firms are effective at tackling money laundering issues, they must avoid complacency after recent findings.

A number of site audits carried out found a small number of examples of malpractice, and that whilst many of these were harmless, they needed to be kept in check.

The ‘Anti-Money Laundering Report’ released by the regulator stated that all firms inspected had a specific money laundering officer to report any issues and stated that the majority of firms were ‘effective’ in their practice.

That said, there were weaknesses located in a few firms and there are investigations going on into an even smaller number of firms.

Mostly, the audit found that where malpractice was occurring, it was the updating of terminology and procedure that was found lacking.

A number of firms still referred to the Serious Organised Crime Agency, rather than the National Crime Agency (NCA) which replaced it in 2013.

The report claimed this was “a failure to review and amend policies regularly, and raised questions about their use and effectiveness and the firm’s commitment to AML generally.”

Another unnamed firm had recently undergone a merger, and had then not updated any of its AML practices, which demonstrated the need to keep on top of things and not become complacent.

Despite these small examples of negligence however, the chief executive of SRA, Paul Philip, stated that the “overall picture is positive”. He did go on to warn directly that neither the regulator or the firms it regulates, should become complacent.

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