Family Law

Law firms need to check whether they need to register doing tax advice work to fulfil their obligations under the money laundering regulations. This includes specialist family law firms.

The Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive brought in amended regulations, with the definition of ‘tax adviser’ widened to include more activities than before. Any firm that finds it is now in the scope of the regulations should have applied to the SRA or another AML supervisor, such HM Revenue and Customs, to be supervised for money laundering before 10 January.

The SRA has produced guidance for firms to help determine whether or not you fall within the scope of the regulations.

Even if a firm believes that they do not need to be regulated for anti-money laundering purposes they should read the guidance before being confident of this.

Read the SRA here.