Articles
Financial Crime ConcernsFebruary 21, 2020Issues relating to financial crime continue to be high on the regulatory agenda, and in this article we look again at the responsibilities on law firms to avoid any unwitting involvement in all forms of financial crime – not just money laundering. Read More
Flooding and environmental issuesFebruary 18, 2020The recent spate of storms as increased everyone's awareness of the danger that flooding can present to properties throughout Britain. It is topical, therefore, that the Law Society have produced two environmentally focused practice notes - one dealing with Flood Risk and the other with Contaminated Land.Read More
Revised Money Laundering Regulations now in ForceJanuary 13, 2020The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2019 took effect on Friday 10th January. Although the new provisions will have more impact on sectors other than law firms, especially the banks and those concerns that have dealings with crypto-currencies, nevertheless there are changes of which law firms need to be aware including the increased importance of risk management and in relation to enhanced due diligence.Read More
Advertising your servicesJanuary 8, 2020Paragraph 8.9 of the SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs has changed the way in which firms can target advertising to potential clients. This article looks at what those changes are and at how there is still a degree of ambiguity as to what is and is not permitted.Read More
PII to Remain UnchangedDecember 20, 2019SRA announces that, following a consultation, it will not be making changes to the current rules requiring solicitors to have a minimum level of professional indemnity insurance (PII) cover but will look at other areas of improvement to PII.Read More
Certifying your AML Risk AssessmentDecember 17, 2019The Solicitors Regulation Authority are in the process of asking firms to certify to them by the end of January that they are in possession of a valid AML risk assessment as required by r.18 of the Money Laundering Regulations 2017. 7,000 firms have been contacted in this follow up to the review earlier this year. Firms who are struggling with this will find the resources provided by Infolegal on its compliance hub to be of assistance to them.Read More
AML – Renewed SRA Risk Assessment WarningsNovember 21, 2019SRA’s announcement that it will be writing to the 7,000 firms to ask them to confirm they have a firm money laundering risk assessment in place has focused the minds of many firms who, up until now, have possibly been a little more complacent than they should have been.Read More
SRA Guidance on the Standards and RegulationsNovember 16, 2019The SRA are very keen to make everyone aware that the length of the new Standards and Regulations, coming into effect on the 25th November, is much reduced and the content simplified. However, to provide explanation of the implication of the various regulations, the SRA is producing a body of guidance which substantially inflates the amount of regulatory information of which firms need to be aware. Here we look at what the current guidance consists of.Read More
New Accounts Rules – Beware!November 9, 2019The forthcoming Standards and Regulations are billed by the SRA as being shorter and simpler. It is easy to assume this means that provided you do what you did, you will remain compliant. Whilst this may be true in some areas, there are others where there has been significant in what is expected of firms and complacency as to those changes could find many at the wrong end of a disciplinary action. Nowhere is this more the case than in relation to the new Accounts Rules.
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Reporting and Self-Reporting under the SRA Standards and RegulationsOctober 24, 2019Whilst few of the forthcoming rule changes in the Standards and Regulations amount to more than just a rearrangement of the main requirements into the two separate codes, nevertheless there are some areas which do require further consideration. One of those is in relation to the provisions of the SRA enforcement regime and in particular what appears to be the increased need for everyone to report a larger number of issues.Read More