Articles
Property Fraud Cases – DreamvarJune 14, 2018We feature this month the familiar topic of who should bear the liability for property fraud when a vendor firm has been induced to sell a property by a client who turns out to be an imposter. The problem is of course that the purchaser's representatives will have forwarded the completion monies in good faith to the supposed vendor's representatives, but they will then have been transferred to the fraudster and are highly unlikely ever to be recovered.Read More
Looking at the SRA Reforms AheadMay 17, 2018It now seems a long time since the SRA issued a series of consultations in 2016 and 2017 on the new “future proofed” Handbook. The current plan is to bring the new Handbook into effect in April 2019 - although there have been suggestions that further delays might arise.Read More
Making Staff Data-Security AwareMarch 16, 2018Data security is very much in the news at present - if only because of the focus that has been brought to bear upon it by the General Data Protection Regulation. Whilst the advice from the cybersecurity sector is to put in place firewalls and software solutions to prevent attacks from taking place, often it is the people in a business that are the weakest link.Read More
Getting to Grips with GDPRFebruary 11, 2018There can be little doubt that one of the major compliance issue of this year will be the implementation of the GDPR on 25th May. However, although there is no shortage of reading material providing an overview of the new provisions, so far there has been precious little advising what this will all actually mean for the legal sector and what you will actually need to do in order to achieve compliance.Read More
Whose File is it Anyway?January 14, 2018The issue of who owns the solicitor's file and whether the client or their new representatives are entitled to demand that it be handed over to them is one that arises from time to time, especially when the client has become unhappy about the services that have been provided to date or after the matter has completed.Read More
Checking Sources of Funds in Financial TransactionsDecember 18, 2017In compliance terms, the main story of the year was without doubt the implementation of the revised Money Laundering Regulations in June.Read More
The Criminal Finances Act 2017October 22, 2017The Criminal Finances Act introduces new powers to seize suspected criminal property even where there has been no conviction and also introduces new offences for professional advisers such as lawyers and accountants in relation to the facilitation of tax evasion.Read More
Countering Liability for Facilitating Tax EvasionOctober 9, 2017In order to counter the risks of liability for this new offence law firms and other professional advisers must have adopted a suitable policy which they can demonstrate to have been based on a risk assessment process.Read More
Law Society AML Guidance UpdatedSeptember 14, 2017The Law Society has now issued its revised guidance on compliance with anti-money laundering and terrorist financing requirements in the light of the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 ("MLR 2017") and so has enabled firms to finalise their policies in this area to ensure continued compliance with these important obligations.Read More
The Criminal Finances Act 2017September 9, 2017New powers will be made available at the end of this month to the authorities in their efforts to combat money laundering through the ability to apply for unexplained wealth orders ("UWOs")Read More