Meeting the Requirements of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act for Investments
The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 (ECA) came into force on 15 March 2022. It is a significant piece of legislation that aims to improve the UK's ability to tackle economic crime.
The ECA makes a number of changes to existing law, including:
Creating a new register of overseas entities. This register will contain information about the ownership of overseas companies and other entities that own property in the UK.
Strengthening the Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO) regime. UWOs allow the government to investigate the source of wealth of individuals who are suspected of acquiring their assets through criminal activity. The ECA makes a number of changes to the UWO regime, including making it easier for the government to obtain UWOs and increasing the penalties for failing to comply with them.
Introducing new sanctions powers. The ECA gives the government new powers to impose sanctions on individuals and entities that are involved in economic crime. These sanctions can include asset freezes, travel bans, and trade restrictions.
The ECA is a significant piece of legislation that has a major impact on the fight against economic crime in the UK. The changes made by the ECA will make it more difficult for criminals to hide their assets and to launder the proceeds of crime. As an example, it is no longer possible to hide any ownership of UK based assets using trust fund structures based on off-shore locations. The Register of Overseas Entities came into force on 1 August 2022 following the rapid passage of the legislation through Parliament because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The new register forms a key part of the government’s strategy to tackle global economic crime. It requires overseas entities that own UK property or land to declare their beneficial owners or managing officers. Overseas entities cannot buy, sell, transfer or lease land, or create a charge against the land in the UK unless they’ve registered with Companies House. Overseas entities in scope who already owned property or land in the UK needed to register within a 6-month transition period, by 31 January 2023 and to-date more than 26,000 overseas entities have registered to date, and law enforcement organisations, journalists and the general public can now access this data on our Find and update company information service. Until the launch of the new register, that information would not have been available. There have already been more than 220,000 searches of the data, which shows the register is meeting the policy intent of increasing transparency about who owns UK property and land.
Do you own or control companies or assets within legal structures abroad and have not registered, the can find out what the law means for your business here: Schedule 1 - application required information https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/10/contents/enacted
If you want to look for a registered form, you will find it here: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/
