New Economic Crime Bill published

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill has the following three broad objectives, as set out in the high-level summary provided in the Explanatory Notes to the Bill:

• Prevent organised criminals, fraudsters, kleptocrats and terrorists from using companies and other corporate entities to abuse the UK’s open economy. This Bill will reform the powers of the Registrar of Companies and the legal framework for limited partnerships in order to safeguard businesses, consumers and the UK’s national security.
• Strengthen the UK’s broader response to economic crime, in particular by giving law enforcement new powers to seize cryptoassets and enabling businesses in the financial sector to share information more effectively to prevent and detect economic crime.
• Support enterprise by enabling Companies House to deliver a better service for over four million UK companies, and improving the reliability of its data to inform business transactions and lending decisions across the economy.

The Bill aims to deliver the following:

• various reforms to Companies House, particularly around the checking and monitoring of information, and providing increased investigation and enforcement powers;
• reforms to prevent the abuse of limited partnerships;
• additional powers to seize and recover suspected criminal cryptoassets; and
• further anti-money laundering reforms, with a focus on increased sharing of information, and also reducing reporting burdens for business.