Privilege and financial crime is a complex area of law. This topic explains privilege as it applies to the anti-money laundering (AML), counter-terrorist financing (CTF) and counter-proliferation financing regime only. Wider privilege and financial crime issues are not set out here. If you are in any doubt as to whether legal professional privilege (LPP) or privileged circumstances apply, you should seek specialist legal advice.
Privilege is a vital consideration when deciding whether to make a suspicious activity report (SAR) to the National Crime Agency (NCA) under the relevant provisions of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA 2002) and the Terrorism Act 2000 (TA 2000).
There are three essential issues:
whether making a SAR to the NCA will breach client confidentiality
whether making a SAR to the NCA will breach the client's right to LPP, and
whether the privileged circumstances defence applies to a potential money laundering offence
This is a hugely complex area of law.
You are under a strict professional and legal duty to keep the...
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