Upcoming AML and Financial Sanctions Webinar

so hello and welcome everyone to this webinar session relating to the the recent s notice that's gone round to say expect a questionnaire um there will be calling in information about firm's AML and financial sanctions position um now um not everyone may may have had their um their email yet but do check your junk email if you haven't had it because sometimes they do end up in there but essentially what we know so far is that um the portal for answering the questions are open in the beginning of August we don't have a date yet um the questions will be mandatory and the they must be be accurate um I I emphasize on the on the accuracy point just harking back to um the Declaration that firms within scope had to put in in December um Sorry by January 2020 in relation to the um regulation 18 risk assessment we're still seeing firms getting um pulled up on that their SRA inspections now where they've submitted a um an incorrect or inaccurate declaration and then it becomes not just a breach of the AML regulations but also a a regulatory issue um by providing a false declaration so I think we can't overemphasize that enough really um so hopefully what we're going to do today is look at at the questions the sample questions that we have um and talk around some of the Practical uh ways that you can kind of get ready to get ready to provide this information because the the um the time's going to come up pretty quick after the summer holidays um and then we're right into uh practicing certificate renewals a lot lots of firms have got pii renewals and it's all going to get a bit close as soon as we get into um uh the end of August so using this time now to really prepare uh to be ready is we thought a good thing to do and there's so there's quite quite a number of people registered for today so it's obvious um it's a uh um a really topical thing that firms are wanting to get right so I think Gavin if if sort of hand over to you at this point to kind give some background as to why the srra are collecting this information yeah sure thanks Kate um so the SR has its own regulator if you like you you all know that the the the regulator for the SR is opass um and their their remit really is um that the SR um should do their work on a risk-based approach so part of part of that is to make sure that where the Sr allocates its resources where it undertakes its reviews uh are done on a risk-based approach part of that risk-based approach is is getting this information together so it's it's it's not a declaration in the truest sense in the way that that it was before for the firmwide risk assessments or for the the website transparency price transparency declarations that were made before this is more a data collection exercise so the SR is collecting this data in uh it will obviously know which firm it's been submitted on behalf of uh and it will it will use that information then to help guide it in terms of visits that it does or desktop reviews um and of course if you're a much smaller firm with a much lower risk or a much smaller conveyancing practice or whatever it might be the likelihood is that you're not going to be top of the list if you like for for an Sr visit it's going to be those um higher risk bigger firms with bigger conveyancing departments that that come top of the list for for an or a visit that doesn't mean to say you won't get one if you're a smaller firm it's just that risk-based approach that there will be um those that are on top of the list are going to be the riskier practices if you like or the higher risk practices um some of the the stuff that Kate was just alluding to there when when this goes live it will go live through the same Sr page that you that you've had the notification about you've had the email about so um there will be a portal or a link in that page uh come com early August you'll need to log into that portal using your own my SRA details so your own uh um login and password that you have for my Sr that will ensure that that the um obviously it's linked to the firm that you work for it will have to be completed by either your mlro mlco or Culp um I think with the options given on on the web page um so again just making sure that that the person completing this um is the correct person is is the person that has authority to do it and and the other bit to this is is as Kate said really making making sure that that you're ready to get ready um um so it's collecting that information together we're going to go through the questionnaire in a second and there are various different sections to the to the questionnaire the draft questions that are or the example questions that the SR has provided on their page um and you you'll see um in those draft questions that there are areas that you're going to need to link in with your accounts team on there are areas that you're going to need to link in with your compliance teams on um possibly even with your HR uh um teams if you have them um just around people and and and roles and things like that and I think at this point probably the best thing to do is to to share the questionnaire I'll just share my screen while you're pulling that up Gavin I just want to um on a practical point and and and this is rare that this might happen but it happened a couple of years ago is that um a firm um had lost their link to a to a previous portal and borrowed one from one of their friends from another firm and submitted the application of the responses through that link and that it actually picked up through the link that it was the other firm so they' submitted their own information but it was flagged as the other firm submitting it so be really careful to only use your own um link if they do it in that way this time just being really careful to only use what you've been sent but of course we've not seen yet um the method that that will be um shared so just making that point okay just picking up the U the initial questions on the questionnaire um all very straightforward uh um easy to answer on so does your firm carry out um the following activities in scope of of the money laundering regulations um so you'll know already whether you fall within scope whether you're a regulated entity simple yes or no answers um does your firm carry out any of the following trust or company Services uh again yes or no answer uh um to that one so we're not into any detail at the moment um and how many suspicious activity reports has your firm submitted to the NCA in the last 12 months so that will be a 12 month period um from the date that the portal goes live that you have access to it or from the date that you're making making your submission um and again it gives you ranges uh um zero through to more than 50 um so again it's just about having that information to hand and uh um potentially simply for this question your m is should have details of how many reports have been made to the NCA um and it's if you're the person dealing with this uh uh with this answering this questionnaire it's going to be and and you're not the M it's going to need some tying with your M or your your AML staff just to answer some of these questions so when you answer um the first section um what that then does is moves you on to the subsequent sections now if you've answered no uh to that first section um then potentially a lot of the other questions that follow don't apply obviously if you've answered yes which I'm assuming would be the reason that most of you are on the call today um then you need to move on to the to to the following sections if you like the following subsequent sections so let me just um bring up the next page so again fairly straightforward questions these um asking things like do you have an AML firm risk assessment um a yes no answer and that guides you then on to what what question you need to go to next um when was your AML firmwide risk assessment last updated so again um the key with the key thing with these is making sure that you have done updates uh and me and K were talking about this earlier just before the session started if it's quite a while since you updated your documents it's probably a good idea to get those updates done before you make this submission um it will look better if you're answering that youve you've updated them in the last six months rather than more than one year ago um and the same will will apply with your policies controls and procedures as well trying to get a review in before you make this submission would be would be the better option and there will be a window for completing this um for completing this questionnaire as well don't know how long the SRA hasn't said but that may give you that window of time to look at your pcps look at your firmwide risk assessment again so that you can give that sort of more favorable answer that you've you reviewed them less than six months ago um moving on um again it's asking about when when your policies controls and procedures are last updated uh when did your relevant employees uh receive AML training so again if you have the opportunity refresh your relevant employees training as well uh I think that's that's a key one if you're saying it's more more than a year ago since your staff have been trained um that's probably one of those areas that's going to flag up as a risk for the SR um so again if you if you uh if you can get your training done in that window when this opens or beforehand um it it will look better to be able to answer those questions in terms of training and policies and reviews um this is where it gets slightly trickier so into question nine onwards so it starts to look at percentages um now the key thing to note here is the SR has said that it appreciates that not all practices will have um management information that will give these you know really sort of uh accurate answers on this so they have said that you can estimate you can give an estimated answer just trying to make sure it's as as accurate as as as you possibly can now again you've got ranges so uh it makes life easier you haven't got to provide a specific percentage um so it should be fairly easy to to work out which of these ranges you sit in um so when it talks about percentage of all your open matters that that are in scope of money laundering regulations again that's probably going to need some work with your accounts your accounts team or your compliance teams to understand how many new matters you've opened in the year how many of those fought within the money laundering regulations and again when we're talking about that Kate myself were just just touching on this earlier it's about having in your mind all of those teams in in your in your firms that do fall within those regulations so you might have a situation where we and again we were just saying this you might have a situation where a fee earner drifts in and out of work uh that falls within regulations so they may work in a non-regulated part of the business but but may occasionally do some conveyancing work or something like that that in itself has its own uh its own issues and something else to talk about on another day making sure that people are trained up and working in the areas that they should be um but when you're looking at at the fee earners and the teams that and the work that falls within scope I think it's trying to Define that quite clearly before you start to give these figures or work out what these figures are um again what percentage of your fear earners do any work in scope and money laundering Rags should be a fairly easy equation to do look at how many fear earners you have how many working teams that fall within the regulations uh and then give your answer within those ranges starts to get slightly more accounts focused now uh question 11 onwards uh what's the largest single deposit of money into your client account so again getting ready to get ready that phrase that we've used a few times go and have a chat with your accounts team uh get this information together uh that they'll they'll know what their largest single deposit was um what percentage of your firms New AML matters in the last 12 months had enhanced due diligence that's going to be one for your compliance teams uh I'm assuming that most of you on the call anyway are going to be sort of compliance in compliance Focus roles so it it's you'll probably have those answers to hand anyway um but again working through those ranges it's you should have some form of recording of high-risk matters and enhanced due diligence matters um so again you should be able to work out those percentages that sit within those ranges again um you've got ranges here so it's not too difficult but but looking at politically exposed persons so again most firms will keep some kind of register um of of peps that they're working with it might be through your electronic ID verification systems you might have it on a spreadsheet but it's revisiting that for the last 12 months and having a look at how many uh um peps you might have worked with over that last 12 months again you've got ranges so it's not looking at specific figures um another accounts focused one question 14 number of times that you've returned more than £5,000 from your client account in the last 12 months that's going to be quite a tricky one I think for some people um but again we will require some tieing with your accounts teams um I'm looking at um when large sort of uh large amounts of of monies have been returned to a client either from aborted transactions um incorrect deposits whatever it might be and of course there should be processes that are being followed there uh around return of of client funds as well uh to make sure that you're not file with the source of funds uh inquiries arment of the AML RS so this bit then leads you I was just thinking just as just before we get into tcsp maybe just let's have a look at a couple of the questions question they've been coming through so um have you can can you see those as well Gavin yeah yeah so um so there's firstly a question about the um this is a sample set of questions will are these not the final set so they are subject to final Amendment final change when they they actually go um live but this is um these questions are have been put out there by the SR um with with the um notification to firms so it we're we're pretty certain it's it's going to be pretty much these questions there may be some final changes but if you have a look on on the screen that Gavin's sharing it says uh specimen only so I think it's to make the point that this the these are the the likely questions well there may be some last minute changes so um and you can't submit any answers anyway before the portal opens um there's also a question in about um there seems to be a view with Regulators that low reporting equals poor compliance but could it be low reporting is because firms are stopping things at the door and I think that's a really good point and I think often that is the reason particularly with law firms and we we're so we're so sort of um on our guard with um what we take in through the front door that that might be why it's lower but I think that the really important thing to do in that situation if you've got um uh nil reports or very low reports is to be ready to have that conversation with the regulator to point to how robust your procedures are and systems and your firmwide risk assessment and give examples in fact um having um a a register of firm that you um matters you've turned down in the first instance to show that you've got a really high thresh threshold for things that you'll take on so if you've take if you've turned something down early doors just because it just doesn't look right and you've not got a suspicion as yet but you've got high standards then you're never going to get to that point where you need to put in a suspicious activity report so it's it's being ready with the with the facts really to support that if you if you think that that is the reason why you why you've got a a low um a low reporting figure would you add anything to that gabin um no I think I mean from from your own internal perspectives um you will know you will have a feel for um where you're at in terms of reporting uh um if you're not getting any reports across your desk as an mro um you will know whether that's because your staff aren't trained well enough don't have a enough awareness or whether that's because you have very robust client take on procedures and and uh onboarding procedures and you as Kate says you're stopping them at the door um you will know that from your own firms anyway um and so I think if if you aren't getting any reports across your desk as an mro um it's for you to then reflect on that and decide what the reason is and it might be that actually there needs to be better awareness in in The Firm um I was just saying to Kate as an mlro in a mid- tier firm I was probably making anywhere between 10 12 maybe even 14 reports a year um and that was a mid a mid tier firm uh that was on a on a busy year we did have we did have years where we we did less than that um but certainly zero would have um would have been a concern for me um because I'd be expecting to see some reports coming from fee earners particular if you have conveyance in departments or higher risk departments in in the business yeah we've got a question um uh relating to I think it's a few questions back about um question about in scope staff is that qualified for is only as opposed to paralegals don't know if you want to pull that question up again Gavin we go back got it there yeah all right I can't see it can you on the actual question set oh sorry right yeah yeah just going back to the question which asks about in scope work and and how many how many stuff where were we two seconds I find it there so um employees yeah how many I lost it oh there we go what percentage of your Fe fee earners do any work in scope of the money laundering regulations so when I've answered this previously um for an AML audit I've included um paralal and trainees in there um not just qualified because essentially they are they are working on work that falls within uh within the scope of the regulations so I would uh I wouldn't just I wouldn't just uh includeing their qualified solicitors or or uh um fee earners I'd be looking at your paralal and trainees as well in that figure yeah and it's looking at what they're doing if if your paralal is purely ad administrative and it you know you can you can get some very very administrative rool where they're not actually making any decisions or not actually moving things forward and there's potentially an argument to say um well then not fee earning it's more you know the the the administrative support in The Firm but I think I I agree with Gavin Ado on the side of caution there and and and if they are touching the in scope work to to to include them to be honest with you yeah yeah it's it's C there's certainly no distinction um between FEA qualified and paral legal in any event is more what they're doing as opposed qualification another question just around um will firms be around question 13 will firms be able to properly track when a matter starts as low risk with no Ed but then turns into a higher risk later where enhanced due diligence is required I guess that's going to come down to um what Mi information you hold how you record it um it may be tricky if you only record it at the outset or the onboarding of a client or onboarding of a new matter um if you change your risk R assessments which you should do through ongoing through ongoing monitoring as a result of enhanced due diligence being required then you should be able to track back uh and look at your numbers uh for those matters where enhanced due diligence has maybe being required further down the line and of course that's part of the ongoing monitoring piece as well yeah we we've got a question in here um will we ever have CMS that actually works for data uh maybe CMS developers need to be on this call um good point and I think there might be I think there's certainly a few on the call that might have an interest in this area but I do think and I've I have mentioned to this to some providers that we we know what the SRA are asking for and they did a similar exercise a few years ago can we please a system that's designed to collect this information because it's not going away um and I think the last time they did an exercise like this I think there was there's there's quite a number in the community saying this is going to be an annual requirement this so it's it's the the the software companies the CMS developers really getting on board say this isn't going away can we please have a fit for FP solutions for this uh and I know I think in in the um in the delegate list certainly in the registrant list there are people who are who have the power in this area in the software world so hopefully that that point is picked up there are some very good there are some very good Mi tools out there as well I'm not going to name any names um but but there are um some good Mi tools that you can use that bolt into CMS systems as well uh and give Landing platforms for for you know compliance and for accounts and for higher risk uh matters and for source of funds uh some really good stuff out there that that you can bolt in obviously that comes at a cost and smaller firms uh um may not have the budgets for that um but I think again back to this original the original point on this question the SR have actually said they're happy for you to estimate on these these figures as well and because most of the answers are within ranges it's not asking you for a specific figure it should be able to sort of provide an estimate within those ranges um we've got another question in about will firms be able to select a cut off date for the data or will it have to be up to the date of the submission of the question response um I'm not sure if you got a view on this Gavin but I seem to remember the last exercise that um when this was done it was really General it was just said within the last um 12 months didn't it it didn't yeah and that's what this one says it says within the last 12 months but in the in the FAQs it actually says um you should try and do it from the date well not the date of your submission but the date of completing the questionnaire so when you just work 12 months backwards from from the date you're completing the questionnaire if that's possible I'm sure again they're not going to be looking at exact dates it's just making sure that you've got the the most current 12 months in there and that you're not you know you're not looking at something from 2122 um so yeah I think I think that's all the questions that we've got at the minute okay yeah keep them coming because these are great I'll keep moving on two seconds so trust and Company service provision um another another key area for some firms there will be a lot of firms that don't do this and if your answer to this is no basically you can move on to the next section um but for those that do do it uh again it's a very similar set of questions so a it asks you if you do do it so it's a yes or no answer um but then you start to get into the percentages again so what percentage of your firm's turnover did the following area represent the last 12 months then it breaks it down into the different areas of trust and Company service provision so forming entities that may be the one that that more firms are caught by so helping with the forming of uh new companies um I think probably more war firms do that than than some of the other areas of TS tcsp uh provision again um if you don't have the exact Mi you you've got ranges to work within so it should be fairly easy to to to decide which range you fall within um what percentage of uh of your firm's turnover is in acting or arranging for another person to act so as trustees or nominee shareholders again I don't see that many firms that get involved in this there will be some out there um but again you'll have a feel for how how much uh you do of that work and what range you fall into um are the risk posed by tcps addressed in your firmwide risk assessment so that's a fairly straightforward yes no um if you do do tcsp work it should be in your risk assessment so something to note probably just to make sure that it is if if you do do it um and then this question I thought was quite an unusual one question 21 um what steps have you taken to mitigate the tcsp risks identified in your firmwide risk assessments um so again it's it's giv you different options that you can tick for things that you've done now for for the most part if you're doing tcsp work most of those options below should apply um I guess if you're ticking the noneof the above option that's where that's where the SR starts to uh uh get a bit Twitchy and think that you might have a a bigger risk uh issue so again it's just having a look at those and looking at what kind of things you do have in place to mitigate trust and Company service provision if you deal with it as as part of your um your day-to-day work uh we then move into um the last section which again really will need some close work with your money laundering reporting officer and it's looking at uh how many reports you've submitted in the last 12 months how many of those were submitted uh for an actual damel or a defense against moneya laundering uh and how many were on an information only basis so obviously most of you that that deal with this side of things will be aware that you can submit two different types of reports um and it's looking to break those down and look to see how many firms are actually requesting defense or damals uh to to uh undertake further work again trust and Company service provision seems to be a key focus in this in this um set of questions and it's asking how many suspicious activity reports were submitted uh that involve trust and company services so that's quite an interesting one I imagine the number would be fairly low for most people but again um it's got ranges that you can use to give your answers how many uh submitting the last 12 months with the buying and selling of real property or business entities that's going to be the one where most people I imagine are going to have reports that have been made in my experience nearly all of my reports came from uh um not probably 80 85% of my reports came from conveyancing uh the others then were were from sort of corporate and Commercial the OD State Administration uh um report so then it's just asking you about other areas so if you've made any any saws um that are outside of either trust tcsp work or property work um what were those and again I've just touched on those I I used to get maybe a handful and maybe not that many even that were in estate Administration or corporate commercial based where we were we're handling the funds for a corporate transaction of some description so again if you're getting any of those it's just looking at what what ranges that fits into and interestingly they ask about Services outside of scope of the money laundering regs as well so again I used to get one or two maybe of um uh reports from from litigators from from uh dispute resolution um just based on on maybe the fact that they've been asked to to handle the funds a settlement funds on a dispute uh and the source of funds had raised some queries or some concerns so again if you're getting any of those it's worth picking those up and making mention of those as well in your numbers as well yeah also when it it's out of scope work as well as there's more likely to be issues relating to Legal privilege and Prof professional privilege and just to a warning to go carefully on that case yeah definitely M to look at I know Gavin you've had you had to um get external council's advice on a few occasions yeah where legal privilege applies uh you might have uh reports come across your desk but that you're not you're not sending onwards to the NCA because Bowman and files applies um because because legal privilege applies um and you've decided not to make that that report very tricky area um one as Kate says I sought external advice on a couple of times uh just to make sure I didn't fall foul of it obviously if you're not making that report you want to make sure that you're absolutely banged onone because you don't want to fall fou of a a failure to report offense uh uh in your role as an mro so it's just making sure that that you've considered that as well and I think it's really important for that to to highlight that that should be the M M's decision as to whether Legal Professional provision applies and not the the sort of fers or other employees making that decision so not reporting it because they think it applies uh we have seen that that before with some some firms with a feers thinking well I'm not reporting that because of legal privilege and actually that if it's as a suspicion it should go to the mlro and the mlro is then on on them to figure out the next step I used to have that argument a lot from with litigators he used to say to me well um because it's litigation bman and files apply so I don't need to tell you about it and I said no you need to tell me about it I don't need to tell the NCA about it potentially um so it's making sure that your fee earners as cases aren't taking it upon themselves to make that decision and decide not to report it to you I think that's the distinction that has to be made clear that still has to come across your desk as an mro um it's your decision then whether you report it onwards to the NCA or not so just picking up the last section and this is a section that's that applies for everybody uh and everybody will need to complete is a sanction section um we've had quite a lot of discussion around sanctions over you know over the last few years I think in particular about how much remit the SRA has just seen an article this morning actually that said the SRA had referred on to London based firms uh for sanctions failures uh and it refer them on to the treasury uh and offy so whilst the SR may not have an enforcement remit on it they certainly have a remit to to report firms onwards so I think making sure that you're um uh across the sanctions piece and answering these questions accurately is is another key one so um one that may may catch a few people out this question 28 have you assessed and writing the sanctions risks your firm may be exposed to so that might be within um your firm wide risk assessment you might have a separate sanctions risk assessment but it's something to make sure that you've got in there somewhere written down um and and it's one that I when I do AML audits uh it's one that I I often pick up because it's something that whilst people do it they haven't referred to it in their risk assessments um so it's just making sure that you have that and and equally in your AML policies as well um whilst it isn't AML it sanctions the AML polic is as good place as any need to to to have a section in around sanctions um do you have clients with a connection to any of the countries listed below and it gives out quite a long list here um most of these are going to be on on the um highrisk third countries list some won't be um but it's worth looking at them from a sanctions perspective um and whether you've done any uh any work with clients from these countries again it's literally just a tick it's not asking you how many it's just ticking the the countries that apply that you might have done work with clients who come from those countries um do you provide advice or offer services to clients in any of the following areas so then it goes into the key sort of areas that are affected by sanctions to trade and shipping Aviation immigration Financial sanctions n of the above uh none of the above obviously is the uh is the preferable answer because if you don't work in those areas then your risk is much lower um but there will be some firms that definitely do lots of work even solely do work in shipping or Aviation uh we work with some clients that that is their sole client base how do you check whether a new client is subject to sanctions so this will this is going to track back through to do you check the um the UK sanctions list manually do you use an electronic ID verification system which tells you so again it gives you those options um do you check if an existing client is subject to sanctions during the life of a matter so that's looking at how often do you renew your due diligence when do you revisit it is it every 12 months is it every two years every three years um so it's it's looking at that that refresh of of DD and and if you do it and certainly if you renew your electronic if you use electronic ID verification do do you renew that report the other bit is with electronic ID verification you you may well have uh ongoing monitory in the background as well a lot of the the ID uh verification platforms now have ongoing monitoring and they they will send you alerts when when a client status changes so if you're using that and you have that ongoing monitoring as well that's the best of both worlds uh um doesn't mean that you can negate having a Refresh on your DD at a certain point um but I think having that as well in the background on your electronic verification system is is uh a bonus if you like uh in the last 12 months have you carried out any work for sanction individuals organizations ships or vessels there will be some firms that that have done that with either with a license from offy um a lot of firms we work with just basically don't touch it if they have sanctioned individuals or or entities um they don't work with them that's not to say that everybody on this call will fall into that category so it's something again that's um um key to look at and see if you've done any work with designated individuals or entities we we have seen it before with and as again it's very specific on on the the profile The Firm isn't it but some it can come up where they are sanctioned and they do have to follow that you know get the license and we have seen that happen but there's it's it's knowing that that has to be done and and those sorts of firms are usually well well versed the one I'm thinking of actually um advises their own clients on the sanctions regime so there's there's diff there's different profiles of firms and and that's dealt within their firmwide risk assessment so it's all it's all relevant to to your your own risk profile isn't it as to what's normal but making sure you follow the right right procedures so you don't fall file of that yeah definitely and I think that you know key to this um as you see here in question 34 if you've answered that you've worked with sanctioned individuals without a license they want an explanation as well so they they're giving you a a maximum 1,000 character count uh to type in an explanation of why you've worked with a client a designated individual uh or or entity without a license uh and I think if you have done that then you'll need to have some pretty good justification in there um again if if you've gone with uh do you have any open matters where the client is a designated person or owned or controlled by a designated person so again that's if you've gone without a license if you've answered yes uh without a license to working with designated entities or individuals um and then how many matters do you have open as well so again it's all about it tracks right back to that that bit we were saying at the beginning this is about the R assessing risk and looking at where where are the really risky law firms that we need to Target and look at uh um from a an audit perspective uh and some of these answers here are going to be the ones that guide them on those audits how many license applications have you made um how many of you made on behalf of the clients so Kate touched on the fact there that we have a client that works in the sanctions regime area uh and they work for other clients uh helping out with that so if you've made license applications on behalf of a client uh that that may well sort of bring you into scope of this this part of the questionnaire as well uh and you'll need to be advising how many of those license applications you've made on behalf of clients um so then you've got um oh can't quite see that question minute what do that question say at the top of the page Z I can't read it because are you currently holding any frozen assets or funds that belong to a designated person including those of entities owned or controlled by a designated person so around frozen assets and funds yeah and again if if you are um I I would suggest probably that you've already done all the necessary stuff in the background you've obtained the licenses you've made the reports to the NCA if you're hanging on to Frozen funds you should already really have jumped through all the Hoops that you need to um and I wouldn't imagine there are many firms that are doing that not saying that that it's going to be zero um but where you are you should already have had LS of reports made anyway how much Mone total do you hold so again uh it gives you a range uh and on behalf of how many clients you holding These funds so again if if you're into that area and and and you're holding Frozen funds the risk factor in that is going to be much higher much greater uh and and the SR will be looking at that as as part of their their considerations um how many reports uh designated person have you made to offc um how many reports of frozen assets have you made to offc uh how many reports of a breach of sanctions have you made to offy so again all tying back to if if you're into this area and you're holding Frozen funds and you're working with designated individuals it should tie back to how many licenses and reports you've made as well uh and you should be keeping a register of those somewhere if you work in this particularly uh risky area that is the uh the questionnaire in its entirety but I can I note that we've got quite a few more questions dropped in again so good to revisit those I think yeah don't I'm on it uh so we've got some questions around sanctions and and how far firms really need to go so um one about whether you need to do sanctions checks on all your clients and one whether you need to do sanctions checks on counterparties now this this comes follow following um the SRA gave some guidance and also that they said on a webinar and this was I think it was April last year that you should be doing count um sanctions checks on all all all clients and all and all counterparties and I think we all went a bit crazy at that time um I know um our clients were shaking their heads and and I actually wrote an article on it as well I'll try and dig it out and and share it in in the chat um but essentially um the the sra's rode back from that position now and we've seen um um how the SRA have have approached firms who aren't doing it because we've sort of supported them through their audits so on on sanctions on all clients um it's not mandatory that you do it um and it depends on what profile of clients that you have so one example we had is a we had one of our clients is a a High Street uh Private Client um solicitors and they are um all all local local um clients and they didn't routinely do sanction checks on all clients they didn't have um they weren't using Eid they were still doing you know um uh certified passports um clients coming into the office that sort of uh traditional firm and um prior to and it was just after the the SR put all this out that we were supporting them through their their Sr visit and what we did there is we we set out why um they weren't doing on every client and and the risk versus the risk profile of of their client um base um but also said that what they do where there are those risk features so for perhaps if there was um a feature on on either side of a transaction for example which might might make it more risky to um to the sanctions coming into play that they would run the the check on the offy website um the the SRO were happy with that explanation for them uh they may not have been as happy if they if it was a situation as one of the higher risk um um law firms that we client-based law firms that Gavin was mentioning if they didn't do routine sanctions checks that would be a problem so essentially it's it's down to the size and nature of your firm as to whether that would be acceptable But ultimately making the point that it's it is a strict liability regime so if you don't do any checks and you do get caught out it is strict liability it's not like the AML regime where it's um a risk-based approach and what's reasonable is strict liability um but looking at the um whether you should um check the counterparty so the not your client the other the other party on the other side of the transaction again strict liability does apply so if if you do full foul of the sanctions regime you can't say well they had a solicitor they should have checked it is strict liability but what the S um kind of made clearer in the in the following in the over the course of the next 12 months was that um offc will look at the circumstances when looking at enforcement so it's always going to be strict liability but there may be mitigating circumstances um which you know which might mean that you get a a lesser um uh sanction if you like um so I I think I will I'll dig out that article actually as well on the um on the on that I wrote on this the sanctions because I think that's it's really useful and it's really relevant but hopefully that's answer the questions about um whether you should be reviewing um or searching sanctions for counterparty and party it's basically that proportionate response um do you agree on this that was my experience of it having been on the the other end of of an SRA audit where I was asked about this we were doing on that that proportionate um basis if you like where the risks were higher where there was the the um a risk-based approach if you like of of why we needed to look at counter parties or do counter parties than we were doing them we weren't running electronic ID and V checks on them we were just doing it through the a manual check of the of the UK uh uh sanctions list um but we were evidencing that in our in our firmwide risk assessment sorry in our client and matter risk assessments if we checked counter parties um and my experience with that from from an S audit was that the SR were happy with that they there wasn't an expectation that you'll check in every counterparty and certainly that's not realistically possible anyway that was that was my answer to them at the time of the audit I I I literally would have no other time to do anything else if I was check if I was checking every counterparty uh on every matter that we dealt with uh and again they they were happy with that approach I think um oh sorry Kate go on yeah no I was just just on that I think what really kind of so on one of the webinars they did around it was around spring last year that there was a sort of a nonchalant uh suggestion that firms should just tie it into their conflict checking stage to just do the sound it's like well yeah sounds good in theory but it's you know the the realities of it aren't that straightforward are they and I think that they have rode back from that position um but I have shared that that article that I wrote in the in the chat as well if anyone wants to check that out I there's another um another question Kate about um should we do be doing sanctions checks on all clients even those that aren't subject to the AML regs the answer to that is yes um it it the sanctions um regime is entirely separate from the AML regime so you should be running sanctions checks on all your clients uh and again as Kate says it is a strict liability piece so so if you fall foul of it uh um it's it's black and white if you like you you've either done it or you haven't um so yes certainly for clients you need to to look at all your clients not just those that that fall within the AML regulations we've got also a question about proliferation financing for example and whether the so the SRA recently confirmed that even if something doesn't apply to your firm for example Pro proliferation funding it still needs noting accordingly in the um firmwide risk assessment uh a recent uh srra webinar said the opposite which caused confusion um from our perspective and when we're advising firms what we always say is since a proliferation financing requirement came in to do a risk assessment on that firm firms within scope of the AML regulations should be doing a risk assessment for that anyway even if it's unlikely to apply um is is what we've been saying just to make sure they're covered on that and um we we have a if if anyone does want a copy of of our one we're happy to to share it after the session but essentially it's going through what the requirement is um what areas of work they do whether of any of those areas of work are high risk for proliferation financing for example and giving some mitigating um you know steps we just kind of deal with it with our clients as a matter of course and almost like we know it's unlikely to apply for you but there's a requirement to do it since last year and just just put it in there we think are on the size of caution certainly the the SRA audits that that we' seen that the SRA are asking about it and are asking to see it um and reference to it in the um it's certainly in the on for a documented risk assessment on it so that's that would be my recommendation is to to do it I don't know would you agree with that gin yeah yeah no I think even in ill return um is is a useful one it just shows that you've considered it and and and it's in your it's in your firmwide risk assessment uh or and or any separate documents some firms that we work with have it entirely separate from from their firmwide risk assessment uh they just have it as a standalone document uh and as Kate says we we do both depending on the client's preference um but even where we work with very lowrisk uh um clients from from a proliferation financing perspective um will'll still make a return uh on that just just just because you can show that you've considered it and you can show it to the the regulator um and it doesn't take long to do a NE return you you know yourself whether you work in an area uh that has any risk from that uh and for for most full service law firms that we work with that generally um the areas that they work in are low risk uh the only one that tends to come up is Corporate and Commercial uh occasionally from a uh Corporate Finance perspective commercial Finance perspective working on finance agreements or or or funding agreements uh depending on where they're based and where the client's based and things like that there's sometimes a pro a proliferation financing consideration uh in those um somebody was talking to me the other week about about a consideration in in conveyance uh my view on that is it might come up but I to be honest I've never seen it um um there's a risk that it could it could occur though Inc conveyancing um so again to consider I guess on it on a firm by firm basis I think it's worth looking at you know often it's not go you know you're not going to get the obvious one across your desk where it's obvious the sort of like buying and selling of of weap components of what it's not going to be FL you show off up like that but I think it's worth sort of workshopping how could it show up in what we do in a really benign way and almost like the training aspect on it and also con from that aspect in the in your risk assessment just to Discount and also to evidence that you have fully considered it and and it is really um a low risk but also if it what if it did come in in a really benign way that you you were trained and ready to to sort of spot it and I think the same applies with with with the sanctions piece that we've just finish talking about sanctions on the questionnaire um the one that I do see a lot of people getting caught out with is they do do some kind of sanctions checks they just don't document it very well um so having that in your firmwide risk assessment in your AML policy I think is a key piece uh and M and and may maybe make that part of the updates that you might make before you make this submission uh is is is probably a good piece of advice if you're going to look at your policies anyway make sure you've got the sanctions piece up to date it certainly seems to be quite heavy Focus there whilst the S doesn't really have a remit on it um as I say there was an article this morning that they' reported two two under law firms to the treasury for failures uh that I've just seen this morning so uh it's certainly something that they are they are still taking actional yeah there's a question as well further up which um missed all glossed over but it was about um it's about in will insurers want these questions submitting and they likely to to call all these in um we've not heard any Rumblings about that and um I certainly in the Octo I can't see it happening for the October renews um I doubt it to be honest with you just on a practical basis uh an underwriter would have to kind of waigh through and make an assessment and understand what all the questions are so I I think it's highly unlikely that they would call these question sets in just because it's not in a digestible uh you know format um I do think key questions might be pulled out for them to put in their proposal forms for example have you you know it might already be in there actually um have you do you are you holding any uh frozen assets for example or you know key questions which are um um are really critical to risk they might ask but I can't see them calling these in um what's potentially more likely and an Sr the SRA are making moves to do this more often is calling the independent audit from the uh that's required the AML audit that and but again it required that be a massive um sort of administrative task for the for the insurers to call them all in I just can't see see that happening but there might be a you know the more likely a question on um regulatory interest or whether you've had to self report which is already in there um but certainly I can't there's nothing on our radar that they would be doing that no and I don't think that's the purpose of this at all now and and and if it was the SR would have to make it clear anyway um I think the purpose of to this is is to guide that risk-based approach for the SR on where they target their resources uh for visits and audits um yeah if there was an issue somewhere further down the line that resulted in some kind of uh AML or negligence issue it may well be that this questionnaire might might form part of a an Evidence package or something that you had to submit to the insurer um but I I don't see it being called in as As a matter of course or anything like that yeah and but and that the caveat to that being that the the insurers can change their mind about what they want at any point can't they and we saw that when um when the the Russia Russia conflict happened that there was right before renewal actually for for the April renewals there was very last minute requests from firms that had already put in The Proposal uh that the the insurers were asking very um detailed and pointed questions around client bases inv you know involving um Russia and and certain parts of uh Ukraine as well so at any point the you know depending on the you know economic climate and Regulatory landscape they can they can ask for what they want really um so I think probably the last piece just to say is that the these questions um are available on the SR uh page uh if you if you've had um your email through you can go into that web page and find these these sample questions on there um similarly if you haven't had your email through you can just find them by searching Sr questionnaire in Google uh and it th and it will throw the web page up that way and you can go in and download these questions so again if you want to if you want to have a look at these questions uh ahead of the portal opening uh to help you get together all your all your info and and your evidence and your information uh I'd suggest doing that go and download these from the SR page um as we said at the beginning the indication is that this is uh whilst it's a specimen only on them um the indication is that this this is what the questions will be when when they come out maybe some some minor tweaks to them but I would use this as a good base to go and get your information together yeah and I think just on a on a practical level we've already said if you if you do want a copy of that proliferation financing risk assessment that we've got which is we're happy to to sort of share and get in touch but on a more practical basis if you think if you're looking at all this and thinking you know what our pcps are no our policies procedures and controls are nowhere near where they should be we we can support on that um so when we send out copy of the recording we'll send out you know some details of how we can support on that so do we can either do a review and repair um job on your your documents or um you know an independent review if you need that or even just just some support or training we can we can offer that as well just so you feel a bit more confident as you're go in answering these questions yeah so we'll do we'll run another one of these as well I think when the portal opens won't we because there's no doubt there'll be more snags when that opens we'll just do another another sort of topup session I'm just checking the questions as well um oh yeah we've got that's really good yeah so we're just getting some comments back found many people found it sort of useful and we're happy to do more of these um style sessions aren't we Gavin kind of like going through uh so on a really practical basis some you know whether it's what the SRA are asking or you know um other compliance topics so we're we're here to help so if you do have any um uh areas that you think do you know what we could do with a Q&A session on that do get in touch as well because we're we're going to be running these sessions fairly regularly aren't we on different topics as as I think yeah hopefully that's the that's the plan and and as Kate says we'll we'll run another one of these when the portal opens maybe maybe slightly more as a questions and answers session uh than going through the questions the whole questionnaire again because I'm sure there will people will have uh questions that they need answers to when the portal opens yeah no perfect wonderful and and and we've also got a lot of free we um free webinars on our website haven't we hi ris.com so if you you know we've got um videos on crypto and sorcer funds and all sorts so there's a Tre Treasure Trove there if if this has wetted your appetites um but yes I think that's I think that's a wrap and we're right on time really aren't we Gavin so yeah I think so yeah um I've got nothing else to add at the moment but I'm I'm happy with that yeah wonderful okay thank you everyone thanks thanks all bye

so hello and welcome everyone to this webinar session relating to the the recent s notice that&#39;s gone round to say expect a questionnaire um there will be calling in information about firm&#39;s AML and financial sanctions position um now um not everyone may may have had their um their email yet but do check your junk email if you haven&#39;t had it because sometimes they do end up in there but essentially what we know so far is that um the portal for answering the questions are open in the beginning of August we don&#39;t have a date yet um the questions will be mandatory and the they must be be accurate um I I emphasize on the on the accuracy point just harking back to um the Declaration that firms within scope had to put in in December um Sorry by January 2020 in relation to the um regulation 18 risk assessment we&#39;re still seeing firms getting um pulled up on that their SRA inspections now where they&#39;ve submitted a um an incorrect or inaccurate declaration and then it becomes not just a breach of the AML regulations but also a a regulatory issue um by providing a false declaration so I think we can&#39;t overemphasize that enough really um so hopefully what we&#39;re going to do today is look at at the questions the sample questions that we have um and talk around some of the Practical uh ways that you can kind of get ready to get ready to provide this information because the the um the time&#39;s going to come up pretty quick after the summer holidays um and then we&#39;re right into uh practicing certificate renewals a lot lots of firms have got pii renewals and it&#39;s all going to get a bit close as soon as we get into um uh the end of August so using this time now to really prepare uh to be ready is we thought a good thing to do and there&#39;s so there&#39;s quite quite a number of people registered for today so it&#39;s obvious um it&#39;s a uh um a really topical thing that firms are wanting to get right so I think Gavin if if sort of hand over to you at this point to kind give some background as to why the srra are collecting this information yeah sure thanks Kate um so the SR has its own regulator if you like you you all know that the the the regulator for the SR is opass um and their their remit really is um that the SR um should do their work on a risk-based approach so part of part of that is to make sure that where the Sr allocates its resources where it undertakes its reviews uh are done on a risk-based approach part of that risk-based approach is is getting this information together so it&#39;s it&#39;s it&#39;s not a declaration in the truest sense in the way that that it was before for the firmwide risk assessments or for the the website transparency price transparency declarations that were made before this is more a data collection exercise so the SR is collecting this data in uh it will obviously know which firm it&#39;s been submitted on behalf of uh and it will it will use that information then to help guide it in terms of visits that it does or desktop reviews um and of course if you&#39;re a much smaller firm with a much lower risk or a much smaller conveyancing practice or whatever it might be the likelihood is that you&#39;re not going to be top of the list if you like for for an Sr visit it&#39;s going to be those um higher risk bigger firms with bigger conveyancing departments that that come top of the list for for an or a visit that doesn&#39;t mean to say you won&#39;t get one if you&#39;re a smaller firm it&#39;s just that risk-based approach that there will be um those that are on top of the list are going to be the riskier practices if you like or the higher risk practices um some of the the stuff that Kate was just alluding to there when when this goes live it will go live through the same Sr page that you that you&#39;ve had the notification about you&#39;ve had the email about so um there will be a portal or a link in that page uh come com early August you&#39;ll need to log into that portal using your own my SRA details so your own uh um login and password that you have for my Sr that will ensure that that the um obviously it&#39;s linked to the firm that you work for it will have to be completed by either your mlro mlco or Culp um I think with the options given on on the web page um so again just making sure that that the person completing this um is the correct person is is the person that has authority to do it and and the other bit to this is is as Kate said really making making sure that that you&#39;re ready to get ready um um so it&#39;s collecting that information together we&#39;re going to go through the questionnaire in a second and there are various different sections to the to the questionnaire the draft questions that are or the example questions that the SR has provided on their page um and you you&#39;ll see um in those draft questions that there are areas that you&#39;re going to need to link in with your accounts team on there are areas that you&#39;re going to need to link in with your compliance teams on um possibly even with your HR uh um teams if you have them um just around people and and and roles and things like that and I think at this point probably the best thing to do is to to share the questionnaire I&#39;ll just share my screen while you&#39;re pulling that up Gavin I just want to um on a practical point and and and this is rare that this might happen but it happened a couple of years ago is that um a firm um had lost their link to a to a previous portal and borrowed one from one of their friends from another firm and submitted the application of the responses through that link and that it actually picked up through the link that it was the other firm so they&#39; submitted their own information but it was flagged as the other firm submitting it so be really careful to only use your own um link if they do it in that way this time just being really careful to only use what you&#39;ve been sent but of course we&#39;ve not seen yet um the method that that will be um shared so just making that point okay just picking up the U the initial questions on the questionnaire um all very straightforward uh um easy to answer on so does your firm carry out um the following activities in scope of of the money laundering regulations um so you&#39;ll know already whether you fall within scope whether you&#39;re a regulated entity simple yes or no answers um does your firm carry out any of the following trust or company Services uh again yes or no answer uh um to that one so we&#39;re not into any detail at the moment um and how many suspicious activity reports has your firm submitted to the NCA in the last 12 months so that will be a 12 month period um from the date that the portal goes live that you have access to it or from the date that you&#39;re making making your submission um and again it gives you ranges uh um zero through to more than 50 um so again it&#39;s just about having that information to hand and uh um potentially simply for this question your m is should have details of how many reports have been made to the NCA um and it&#39;s if you&#39;re the person dealing with this uh uh with this answering this questionnaire it&#39;s going to be and and you&#39;re not the M it&#39;s going to need some tying with your M or your your AML staff just to answer some of these questions so when you answer um the first section um what that then does is moves you on to the subsequent sections now if you&#39;ve answered no uh to that first section um then potentially a lot of the other questions that follow don&#39;t apply obviously if you&#39;ve answered yes which I&#39;m assuming would be the reason that most of you are on the call today um then you need to move on to the to to the following sections if you like the following subsequent sections so let me just um bring up the next page so again fairly straightforward questions these um asking things like do you have an AML firm risk assessment um a yes no answer and that guides you then on to what what question you need to go to next um when was your AML firmwide risk assessment last updated so again um the key with the key thing with these is making sure that you have done updates uh and me and K were talking about this earlier just before the session started if it&#39;s quite a while since you updated your documents it&#39;s probably a good idea to get those updates done before you make this submission um it will look better if you&#39;re answering that youve you&#39;ve updated them in the last six months rather than more than one year ago um and the same will will apply with your policies controls and procedures as well trying to get a review in before you make this submission would be would be the better option and there will be a window for completing this um for completing this questionnaire as well don&#39;t know how long the SRA hasn&#39;t said but that may give you that window of time to look at your pcps look at your firmwide risk assessment again so that you can give that sort of more favorable answer that you&#39;ve you reviewed them less than six months ago um moving on um again it&#39;s asking about when when your policies controls and procedures are last updated uh when did your relevant employees uh receive AML training so again if you have the opportunity refresh your relevant employees training as well uh I think that&#39;s that&#39;s a key one if you&#39;re saying it&#39;s more more than a year ago since your staff have been trained um that&#39;s probably one of those areas that&#39;s going to flag up as a risk for the SR um so again if you if you uh if you can get your training done in that window when this opens or beforehand um it it will look better to be able to answer those questions in terms of training and policies and reviews um this is where it gets slightly trickier so into question nine onwards so it starts to look at percentages um now the key thing to note here is the SR has said that it appreciates that not all practices will have um management information that will give these you know really sort of uh accurate answers on this so they have said that you can estimate you can give an estimated answer just trying to make sure it&#39;s as as accurate as as as you possibly can now again you&#39;ve got ranges so uh it makes life easier you haven&#39;t got to provide a specific percentage um so it should be fairly easy to to work out which of these ranges you sit in um so when it talks about percentage of all your open matters that that are in scope of money laundering regulations again that&#39;s probably going to need some work with your accounts your accounts team or your compliance teams to understand how many new matters you&#39;ve opened in the year how many of those fought within the money laundering regulations and again when we&#39;re talking about that Kate myself were just just touching on this earlier it&#39;s about having in your mind all of those teams in in your in your firms that do fall within those regulations so you might have a situation where we and again we were just saying this you might have a situation where a fee earner drifts in and out of work uh that falls within regulations so they may work in a non-regulated part of the business but but may occasionally do some conveyancing work or something like that that in itself has its own uh its own issues and something else to talk about on another day making sure that people are trained up and working in the areas that they should be um but when you&#39;re looking at at the fee earners and the teams that and the work that falls within scope I think it&#39;s trying to Define that quite clearly before you start to give these figures or work out what these figures are um again what percentage of your fear earners do any work in scope and money laundering Rags should be a fairly easy equation to do look at how many fear earners you have how many working teams that fall within the regulations uh and then give your answer within those ranges starts to get slightly more accounts focused now uh question 11 onwards uh what&#39;s the largest single deposit of money into your client account so again getting ready to get ready that phrase that we&#39;ve used a few times go and have a chat with your accounts team uh get this information together uh that they&#39;ll they&#39;ll know what their largest single deposit was um what percentage of your firms New AML matters in the last 12 months had enhanced due diligence that&#39;s going to be one for your compliance teams uh I&#39;m assuming that most of you on the call anyway are going to be sort of compliance in compliance Focus roles so it it&#39;s you&#39;ll probably have those answers to hand anyway um but again working through those ranges it&#39;s you should have some form of recording of high-risk matters and enhanced due diligence matters um so again you should be able to work out those percentages that sit within those ranges again um you&#39;ve got ranges here so it&#39;s not too difficult but but looking at politically exposed persons so again most firms will keep some kind of register um of of peps that they&#39;re working with it might be through your electronic ID verification systems you might have it on a spreadsheet but it&#39;s revisiting that for the last 12 months and having a look at how many uh um peps you might have worked with over that last 12 months again you&#39;ve got ranges so it&#39;s not looking at specific figures um another accounts focused one question 14 number of times that you&#39;ve returned more than £5,000 from your client account in the last 12 months that&#39;s going to be quite a tricky one I think for some people um but again we will require some tieing with your accounts teams um I&#39;m looking at um when large sort of uh large amounts of of monies have been returned to a client either from aborted transactions um incorrect deposits whatever it might be and of course there should be processes that are being followed there uh around return of of client funds as well uh to make sure that you&#39;re not file with the source of funds uh inquiries arment of the AML RS so this bit then leads you I was just thinking just as just before we get into tcsp maybe just let&#39;s have a look at a couple of the questions question they&#39;ve been coming through so um have you can can you see those as well Gavin yeah yeah so um so there&#39;s firstly a question about the um this is a sample set of questions will are these not the final set so they are subject to final Amendment final change when they they actually go um live but this is um these questions are have been put out there by the SR um with with the um notification to firms so it we&#39;re we&#39;re pretty certain it&#39;s it&#39;s going to be pretty much these questions there may be some final changes but if you have a look on on the screen that Gavin&#39;s sharing it says uh specimen only so I think it&#39;s to make the point that this the these are the the likely questions well there may be some last minute changes so um and you can&#39;t submit any answers anyway before the portal opens um there&#39;s also a question in about um there seems to be a view with Regulators that low reporting equals poor compliance but could it be low reporting is because firms are stopping things at the door and I think that&#39;s a really good point and I think often that is the reason particularly with law firms and we we&#39;re so we&#39;re so sort of um on our guard with um what we take in through the front door that that might be why it&#39;s lower but I think that the really important thing to do in that situation if you&#39;ve got um uh nil reports or very low reports is to be ready to have that conversation with the regulator to point to how robust your procedures are and systems and your firmwide risk assessment and give examples in fact um having um a a register of firm that you um matters you&#39;ve turned down in the first instance to show that you&#39;ve got a really high thresh threshold for things that you&#39;ll take on so if you&#39;ve take if you&#39;ve turned something down early doors just because it just doesn&#39;t look right and you&#39;ve not got a suspicion as yet but you&#39;ve got high standards then you&#39;re never going to get to that point where you need to put in a suspicious activity report so it&#39;s it&#39;s being ready with the with the facts really to support that if you if you think that that is the reason why you why you&#39;ve got a a low um a low reporting figure would you add anything to that gabin um no I think I mean from from your own internal perspectives um you will know you will have a feel for um where you&#39;re at in terms of reporting uh um if you&#39;re not getting any reports across your desk as an mro um you will know whether that&#39;s because your staff aren&#39;t trained well enough don&#39;t have a enough awareness or whether that&#39;s because you have very robust client take on procedures and and uh onboarding procedures and you as Kate says you&#39;re stopping them at the door um you will know that from your own firms anyway um and so I think if if you aren&#39;t getting any reports across your desk as an mro um it&#39;s for you to then reflect on that and decide what the reason is and it might be that actually there needs to be better awareness in in The Firm um I was just saying to Kate as an mlro in a mid- tier firm I was probably making anywhere between 10 12 maybe even 14 reports a year um and that was a mid a mid tier firm uh that was on a on a busy year we did have we did have years where we we did less than that um but certainly zero would have um would have been a concern for me um because I&#39;d be expecting to see some reports coming from fee earners particular if you have conveyance in departments or higher risk departments in in the business yeah we&#39;ve got a question um uh relating to I think it&#39;s a few questions back about um question about in scope staff is that qualified for is only as opposed to paralegals don&#39;t know if you want to pull that question up again Gavin we go back got it there yeah all right I can&#39;t see it can you on the actual question set oh sorry right yeah yeah just going back to the question which asks about in scope work and and how many how many stuff where were we two seconds I find it there so um employees yeah how many I lost it oh there we go what percentage of your Fe fee earners do any work in scope of the money laundering regulations so when I&#39;ve answered this previously um for an AML audit I&#39;ve included um paralal and trainees in there um not just qualified because essentially they are they are working on work that falls within uh within the scope of the regulations so I would uh I wouldn&#39;t just I wouldn&#39;t just uh includeing their qualified solicitors or or uh um fee earners I&#39;d be looking at your paralal and trainees as well in that figure yeah and it&#39;s looking at what they&#39;re doing if if your paralal is purely ad administrative and it you know you can you can get some very very administrative rool where they&#39;re not actually making any decisions or not actually moving things forward and there&#39;s potentially an argument to say um well then not fee earning it&#39;s more you know the the the administrative support in The Firm but I think I I agree with Gavin Ado on the side of caution there and and and if they are touching the in scope work to to to include them to be honest with you yeah yeah it&#39;s it&#39;s C there&#39;s certainly no distinction um between FEA qualified and paral legal in any event is more what they&#39;re doing as opposed qualification another question just around um will firms be around question 13 will firms be able to properly track when a matter starts as low risk with no Ed but then turns into a higher risk later where enhanced due diligence is required I guess that&#39;s going to come down to um what Mi information you hold how you record it um it may be tricky if you only record it at the outset or the onboarding of a client or onboarding of a new matter um if you change your risk R assessments which you should do through ongoing through ongoing monitoring as a result of enhanced due diligence being required then you should be able to track back uh and look at your numbers uh for those matters where enhanced due diligence has maybe being required further down the line and of course that&#39;s part of the ongoing monitoring piece as well yeah we we&#39;ve got a question in here um will we ever have CMS that actually works for data uh maybe CMS developers need to be on this call um good point and I think there might be I think there&#39;s certainly a few on the call that might have an interest in this area but I do think and I&#39;ve I have mentioned to this to some providers that we we know what the SRA are asking for and they did a similar exercise a few years ago can we please a system that&#39;s designed to collect this information because it&#39;s not going away um and I think the last time they did an exercise like this I think there was there&#39;s there&#39;s quite a number in the community saying this is going to be an annual requirement this so it&#39;s it&#39;s the the the software companies the CMS developers really getting on board say this isn&#39;t going away can we please have a fit for FP solutions for this uh and I know I think in in the um in the delegate list certainly in the registrant list there are people who are who have the power in this area in the software world so hopefully that that point is picked up there are some very good there are some very good Mi tools out there as well I&#39;m not going to name any names um but but there are um some good Mi tools that you can use that bolt into CMS systems as well uh and give Landing platforms for for you know compliance and for accounts and for higher risk uh matters and for source of funds uh some really good stuff out there that that you can bolt in obviously that comes at a cost and smaller firms uh um may not have the budgets for that um but I think again back to this original the original point on this question the SR have actually said they&#39;re happy for you to estimate on these these figures as well and because most of the answers are within ranges it&#39;s not asking you for a specific figure it should be able to sort of provide an estimate within those ranges um we&#39;ve got another question in about will firms be able to select a cut off date for the data or will it have to be up to the date of the submission of the question response um I&#39;m not sure if you got a view on this Gavin but I seem to remember the last exercise that um when this was done it was really General it was just said within the last um 12 months didn&#39;t it it didn&#39;t yeah and that&#39;s what this one says it says within the last 12 months but in the in the FAQs it actually says um you should try and do it from the date well not the date of your submission but the date of completing the questionnaire so when you just work 12 months backwards from from the date you&#39;re completing the questionnaire if that&#39;s possible I&#39;m sure again they&#39;re not going to be looking at exact dates it&#39;s just making sure that you&#39;ve got the the most current 12 months in there and that you&#39;re not you know you&#39;re not looking at something from 2122 um so yeah I think I think that&#39;s all the questions that we&#39;ve got at the minute okay yeah keep them coming because these are great I&#39;ll keep moving on two seconds so trust and Company service provision um another another key area for some firms there will be a lot of firms that don&#39;t do this and if your answer to this is no basically you can move on to the next section um but for those that do do it uh again it&#39;s a very similar set of questions so a it asks you if you do do it so it&#39;s a yes or no answer um but then you start to get into the percentages again so what percentage of your firm&#39;s turnover did the following area represent the last 12 months then it breaks it down into the different areas of trust and Company service provision so forming entities that may be the one that that more firms are caught by so helping with the forming of uh new companies um I think probably more war firms do that than than some of the other areas of TS tcsp uh provision again um if you don&#39;t have the exact Mi you you&#39;ve got ranges to work within so it should be fairly easy to to to decide which range you fall within um what percentage of uh of your firm&#39;s turnover is in acting or arranging for another person to act so as trustees or nominee shareholders again I don&#39;t see that many firms that get involved in this there will be some out there um but again you&#39;ll have a feel for how how much uh you do of that work and what range you fall into um are the risk posed by tcps addressed in your firmwide risk assessment so that&#39;s a fairly straightforward yes no um if you do do tcsp work it should be in your risk assessment so something to note probably just to make sure that it is if if you do do it um and then this question I thought was quite an unusual one question 21 um what steps have you taken to mitigate the tcsp risks identified in your firmwide risk assessments um so again it&#39;s it&#39;s giv you different options that you can tick for things that you&#39;ve done now for for the most part if you&#39;re doing tcsp work most of those options below should apply um I guess if you&#39;re ticking the noneof the above option that&#39;s where that&#39;s where the SR starts to uh uh get a bit Twitchy and think that you might have a a bigger risk uh issue so again it&#39;s just having a look at those and looking at what kind of things you do have in place to mitigate trust and Company service provision if you deal with it as as part of your um your day-to-day work uh we then move into um the last section which again really will need some close work with your money laundering reporting officer and it&#39;s looking at uh how many reports you&#39;ve submitted in the last 12 months how many of those were submitted uh for an actual damel or a defense against moneya laundering uh and how many were on an information only basis so obviously most of you that that deal with this side of things will be aware that you can submit two different types of reports um and it&#39;s looking to break those down and look to see how many firms are actually requesting defense or damals uh to to uh undertake further work again trust and Company service provision seems to be a key focus in this in this um set of questions and it&#39;s asking how many suspicious activity reports were submitted uh that involve trust and company services so that&#39;s quite an interesting one I imagine the number would be fairly low for most people but again um it&#39;s got ranges that you can use to give your answers how many uh submitting the last 12 months with the buying and selling of real property or business entities that&#39;s going to be the one where most people I imagine are going to have reports that have been made in my experience nearly all of my reports came from uh um not probably 80 85% of my reports came from conveyancing uh the others then were were from sort of corporate and Commercial the OD State Administration uh um report so then it&#39;s just asking you about other areas so if you&#39;ve made any any saws um that are outside of either trust tcsp work or property work um what were those and again I&#39;ve just touched on those I I used to get maybe a handful and maybe not that many even that were in estate Administration or corporate commercial based where we were we&#39;re handling the funds for a corporate transaction of some description so again if you&#39;re getting any of those it&#39;s just looking at what what ranges that fits into and interestingly they ask about Services outside of scope of the money laundering regs as well so again I used to get one or two maybe of um uh reports from from litigators from from uh dispute resolution um just based on on maybe the fact that they&#39;ve been asked to to handle the funds a settlement funds on a dispute uh and the source of funds had raised some queries or some concerns so again if you&#39;re getting any of those it&#39;s worth picking those up and making mention of those as well in your numbers as well yeah also when it it&#39;s out of scope work as well as there&#39;s more likely to be issues relating to Legal privilege and Prof professional privilege and just to a warning to go carefully on that case yeah definitely M to look at I know Gavin you&#39;ve had you had to um get external council&#39;s advice on a few occasions yeah where legal privilege applies uh you might have uh reports come across your desk but that you&#39;re not you&#39;re not sending onwards to the NCA because Bowman and files applies um because because legal privilege applies um and you&#39;ve decided not to make that that report very tricky area um one as Kate says I sought external advice on a couple of times uh just to make sure I didn&#39;t fall foul of it obviously if you&#39;re not making that report you want to make sure that you&#39;re absolutely banged onone because you don&#39;t want to fall fou of a a failure to report offense uh uh in your role as an mro so it&#39;s just making sure that that you&#39;ve considered that as well and I think it&#39;s really important for that to to highlight that that should be the M M&#39;s decision as to whether Legal Professional provision applies and not the the sort of fers or other employees making that decision so not reporting it because they think it applies uh we have seen that that before with some some firms with a feers thinking well I&#39;m not reporting that because of legal privilege and actually that if it&#39;s as a suspicion it should go to the mlro and the mlro is then on on them to figure out the next step I used to have that argument a lot from with litigators he used to say to me well um because it&#39;s litigation bman and files apply so I don&#39;t need to tell you about it and I said no you need to tell me about it I don&#39;t need to tell the NCA about it potentially um so it&#39;s making sure that your fee earners as cases aren&#39;t taking it upon themselves to make that decision and decide not to report it to you I think that&#39;s the distinction that has to be made clear that still has to come across your desk as an mro um it&#39;s your decision then whether you report it onwards to the NCA or not so just picking up the last section and this is a section that&#39;s that applies for everybody uh and everybody will need to complete is a sanction section um we&#39;ve had quite a lot of discussion around sanctions over you know over the last few years I think in particular about how much remit the SRA has just seen an article this morning actually that said the SRA had referred on to London based firms uh for sanctions failures uh and it refer them on to the treasury uh and offy so whilst the SR may not have an enforcement remit on it they certainly have a remit to to report firms onwards so I think making sure that you&#39;re um uh across the sanctions piece and answering these questions accurately is is another key one so um one that may may catch a few people out this question 28 have you assessed and writing the sanctions risks your firm may be exposed to so that might be within um your firm wide risk assessment you might have a separate sanctions risk assessment but it&#39;s something to make sure that you&#39;ve got in there somewhere written down um and and it&#39;s one that I when I do AML audits uh it&#39;s one that I I often pick up because it&#39;s something that whilst people do it they haven&#39;t referred to it in their risk assessments um so it&#39;s just making sure that you have that and and equally in your AML policies as well um whilst it isn&#39;t AML it sanctions the AML polic is as good place as any need to to to have a section in around sanctions um do you have clients with a connection to any of the countries listed below and it gives out quite a long list here um most of these are going to be on on the um highrisk third countries list some won&#39;t be um but it&#39;s worth looking at them from a sanctions perspective um and whether you&#39;ve done any uh any work with clients from these countries again it&#39;s literally just a tick it&#39;s not asking you how many it&#39;s just ticking the the countries that apply that you might have done work with clients who come from those countries um do you provide advice or offer services to clients in any of the following areas so then it goes into the key sort of areas that are affected by sanctions to trade and shipping Aviation immigration Financial sanctions n of the above uh none of the above obviously is the uh is the preferable answer because if you don&#39;t work in those areas then your risk is much lower um but there will be some firms that definitely do lots of work even solely do work in shipping or Aviation uh we work with some clients that that is their sole client base how do you check whether a new client is subject to sanctions so this will this is going to track back through to do you check the um the UK sanctions list manually do you use an electronic ID verification system which tells you so again it gives you those options um do you check if an existing client is subject to sanctions during the life of a matter so that&#39;s looking at how often do you renew your due diligence when do you revisit it is it every 12 months is it every two years every three years um so it&#39;s it&#39;s looking at that that refresh of of DD and and if you do it and certainly if you renew your electronic if you use electronic ID verification do do you renew that report the other bit is with electronic ID verification you you may well have uh ongoing monitory in the background as well a lot of the the ID uh verification platforms now have ongoing monitoring and they they will send you alerts when when a client status changes so if you&#39;re using that and you have that ongoing monitoring as well that&#39;s the best of both worlds uh um doesn&#39;t mean that you can negate having a Refresh on your DD at a certain point um but I think having that as well in the background on your electronic verification system is is uh a bonus if you like uh in the last 12 months have you carried out any work for sanction individuals organizations ships or vessels there will be some firms that that have done that with either with a license from offy um a lot of firms we work with just basically don&#39;t touch it if they have sanctioned individuals or or entities um they don&#39;t work with them that&#39;s not to say that everybody on this call will fall into that category so it&#39;s something again that&#39;s um um key to look at and see if you&#39;ve done any work with designated individuals or entities we we have seen it before with and as again it&#39;s very specific on on the the profile The Firm isn&#39;t it but some it can come up where they are sanctioned and they do have to follow that you know get the license and we have seen that happen but there&#39;s it&#39;s it&#39;s knowing that that has to be done and and those sorts of firms are usually well well versed the one I&#39;m thinking of actually um advises their own clients on the sanctions regime so there&#39;s there&#39;s diff there&#39;s different profiles of firms and and that&#39;s dealt within their firmwide risk assessment so it&#39;s all it&#39;s all relevant to to your your own risk profile isn&#39;t it as to what&#39;s normal but making sure you follow the right right procedures so you don&#39;t fall file of that yeah definitely and I think that you know key to this um as you see here in question 34 if you&#39;ve answered that you&#39;ve worked with sanctioned individuals without a license they want an explanation as well so they they&#39;re giving you a a maximum 1,000 character count uh to type in an explanation of why you&#39;ve worked with a client a designated individual uh or or entity without a license uh and I think if you have done that then you&#39;ll need to have some pretty good justification in there um again if if you&#39;ve gone with uh do you have any open matters where the client is a designated person or owned or controlled by a designated person so again that&#39;s if you&#39;ve gone without a license if you&#39;ve answered yes uh without a license to working with designated entities or individuals um and then how many matters do you have open as well so again it&#39;s all about it tracks right back to that that bit we were saying at the beginning this is about the R assessing risk and looking at where where are the really risky law firms that we need to Target and look at uh um from a an audit perspective uh and some of these answers here are going to be the ones that guide them on those audits how many license applications have you made um how many of you made on behalf of the clients so Kate touched on the fact there that we have a client that works in the sanctions regime area uh and they work for other clients uh helping out with that so if you&#39;ve made license applications on behalf of a client uh that that may well sort of bring you into scope of this this part of the questionnaire as well uh and you&#39;ll need to be advising how many of those license applications you&#39;ve made on behalf of clients um so then you&#39;ve got um oh can&#39;t quite see that question minute what do that question say at the top of the page Z I can&#39;t read it because are you currently holding any frozen assets or funds that belong to a designated person including those of entities owned or controlled by a designated person so around frozen assets and funds yeah and again if if you are um I I would suggest probably that you&#39;ve already done all the necessary stuff in the background you&#39;ve obtained the licenses you&#39;ve made the reports to the NCA if you&#39;re hanging on to Frozen funds you should already really have jumped through all the Hoops that you need to um and I wouldn&#39;t imagine there are many firms that are doing that not saying that that it&#39;s going to be zero um but where you are you should already have had LS of reports made anyway how much Mone total do you hold so again uh it gives you a range uh and on behalf of how many clients you holding These funds so again if if you&#39;re into that area and and and you&#39;re holding Frozen funds the risk factor in that is going to be much higher much greater uh and and the SR will be looking at that as as part of their their considerations um how many reports uh designated person have you made to offc um how many reports of frozen assets have you made to offc uh how many reports of a breach of sanctions have you made to offy so again all tying back to if if you&#39;re into this area and you&#39;re holding Frozen funds and you&#39;re working with designated individuals it should tie back to how many licenses and reports you&#39;ve made as well uh and you should be keeping a register of those somewhere if you work in this particularly uh risky area that is the uh the questionnaire in its entirety but I can I note that we&#39;ve got quite a few more questions dropped in again so good to revisit those I think yeah don&#39;t I&#39;m on it uh so we&#39;ve got some questions around sanctions and and how far firms really need to go so um one about whether you need to do sanctions checks on all your clients and one whether you need to do sanctions checks on counterparties now this this comes follow following um the SRA gave some guidance and also that they said on a webinar and this was I think it was April last year that you should be doing count um sanctions checks on all all all clients and all and all counterparties and I think we all went a bit crazy at that time um I know um our clients were shaking their heads and and I actually wrote an article on it as well I&#39;ll try and dig it out and and share it in in the chat um but essentially um the the sra&#39;s rode back from that position now and we&#39;ve seen um um how the SRA have have approached firms who aren&#39;t doing it because we&#39;ve sort of supported them through their audits so on on sanctions on all clients um it&#39;s not mandatory that you do it um and it depends on what profile of clients that you have so one example we had is a we had one of our clients is a a High Street uh Private Client um solicitors and they are um all all local local um clients and they didn&#39;t routinely do sanction checks on all clients they didn&#39;t have um they weren&#39;t using Eid they were still doing you know um uh certified passports um clients coming into the office that sort of uh traditional firm and um prior to and it was just after the the SR put all this out that we were supporting them through their their Sr visit and what we did there is we we set out why um they weren&#39;t doing on every client and and the risk versus the risk profile of of their client um base um but also said that what they do where there are those risk features so for perhaps if there was um a feature on on either side of a transaction for example which might might make it more risky to um to the sanctions coming into play that they would run the the check on the offy website um the the SRO were happy with that explanation for them uh they may not have been as happy if they if it was a situation as one of the higher risk um um law firms that we client-based law firms that Gavin was mentioning if they didn&#39;t do routine sanctions checks that would be a problem so essentially it&#39;s it&#39;s down to the size and nature of your firm as to whether that would be acceptable But ultimately making the point that it&#39;s it is a strict liability regime so if you don&#39;t do any checks and you do get caught out it is strict liability it&#39;s not like the AML regime where it&#39;s um a risk-based approach and what&#39;s reasonable is strict liability um but looking at the um whether you should um check the counterparty so the not your client the other the other party on the other side of the transaction again strict liability does apply so if if you do full foul of the sanctions regime you can&#39;t say well they had a solicitor they should have checked it is strict liability but what the S um kind of made clearer in the in the following in the over the course of the next 12 months was that um offc will look at the circumstances when looking at enforcement so it&#39;s always going to be strict liability but there may be mitigating circumstances um which you know which might mean that you get a a lesser um uh sanction if you like um so I I think I will I&#39;ll dig out that article actually as well on the um on the on that I wrote on this the sanctions because I think that&#39;s it&#39;s really useful and it&#39;s really relevant but hopefully that&#39;s answer the questions about um whether you should be reviewing um or searching sanctions for counterparty and party it&#39;s basically that proportionate response um do you agree on this that was my experience of it having been on the the other end of of an SRA audit where I was asked about this we were doing on that that proportionate um basis if you like where the risks were higher where there was the the um a risk-based approach if you like of of why we needed to look at counter parties or do counter parties than we were doing them we weren&#39;t running electronic ID and V checks on them we were just doing it through the a manual check of the of the UK uh uh sanctions list um but we were evidencing that in our in our firmwide risk assessment sorry in our client and matter risk assessments if we checked counter parties um and my experience with that from from an S audit was that the SR were happy with that they there wasn&#39;t an expectation that you&#39;ll check in every counterparty and certainly that&#39;s not realistically possible anyway that was that was my answer to them at the time of the audit I I I literally would have no other time to do anything else if I was check if I was checking every counterparty uh on every matter that we dealt with uh and again they they were happy with that approach I think um oh sorry Kate go on yeah no I was just just on that I think what really kind of so on one of the webinars they did around it was around spring last year that there was a sort of a nonchalant uh suggestion that firms should just tie it into their conflict checking stage to just do the sound it&#39;s like well yeah sounds good in theory but it&#39;s you know the the realities of it aren&#39;t that straightforward are they and I think that they have rode back from that position um but I have shared that that article that I wrote in the in the chat as well if anyone wants to check that out I there&#39;s another um another question Kate about um should we do be doing sanctions checks on all clients even those that aren&#39;t subject to the AML regs the answer to that is yes um it it the sanctions um regime is entirely separate from the AML regime so you should be running sanctions checks on all your clients uh and again as Kate says it is a strict liability piece so so if you fall foul of it uh um it&#39;s it&#39;s black and white if you like you you&#39;ve either done it or you haven&#39;t um so yes certainly for clients you need to to look at all your clients not just those that that fall within the AML regulations we&#39;ve got also a question about proliferation financing for example and whether the so the SRA recently confirmed that even if something doesn&#39;t apply to your firm for example Pro proliferation funding it still needs noting accordingly in the um firmwide risk assessment uh a recent uh srra webinar said the opposite which caused confusion um from our perspective and when we&#39;re advising firms what we always say is since a proliferation financing requirement came in to do a risk assessment on that firm firms within scope of the AML regulations should be doing a risk assessment for that anyway even if it&#39;s unlikely to apply um is is what we&#39;ve been saying just to make sure they&#39;re covered on that and um we we have a if if anyone does want a copy of of our one we&#39;re happy to to share it after the session but essentially it&#39;s going through what the requirement is um what areas of work they do whether of any of those areas of work are high risk for proliferation financing for example and giving some mitigating um you know steps we just kind of deal with it with our clients as a matter of course and almost like we know it&#39;s unlikely to apply for you but there&#39;s a requirement to do it since last year and just just put it in there we think are on the size of caution certainly the the SRA audits that that we&#39; seen that the SRA are asking about it and are asking to see it um and reference to it in the um it&#39;s certainly in the on for a documented risk assessment on it so that&#39;s that would be my recommendation is to to do it I don&#39;t know would you agree with that gin yeah yeah no I think even in ill return um is is a useful one it just shows that you&#39;ve considered it and and and it&#39;s in your it&#39;s in your firmwide risk assessment uh or and or any separate documents some firms that we work with have it entirely separate from from their firmwide risk assessment uh they just have it as a standalone document uh and as Kate says we we do both depending on the client&#39;s preference um but even where we work with very lowrisk uh um clients from from a proliferation financing perspective um will&#39;ll still make a return uh on that just just just because you can show that you&#39;ve considered it and you can show it to the the regulator um and it doesn&#39;t take long to do a NE return you you know yourself whether you work in an area uh that has any risk from that uh and for for most full service law firms that we work with that generally um the areas that they work in are low risk uh the only one that tends to come up is Corporate and Commercial uh occasionally from a uh Corporate Finance perspective commercial Finance perspective working on finance agreements or or or funding agreements uh depending on where they&#39;re based and where the client&#39;s based and things like that there&#39;s sometimes a pro a proliferation financing consideration uh in those um somebody was talking to me the other week about about a consideration in in conveyance uh my view on that is it might come up but I to be honest I&#39;ve never seen it um um there&#39;s a risk that it could it could occur though Inc conveyancing um so again to consider I guess on it on a firm by firm basis I think it&#39;s worth looking at you know often it&#39;s not go you know you&#39;re not going to get the obvious one across your desk where it&#39;s obvious the sort of like buying and selling of of weap components of what it&#39;s not going to be FL you show off up like that but I think it&#39;s worth sort of workshopping how could it show up in what we do in a really benign way and almost like the training aspect on it and also con from that aspect in the in your risk assessment just to Discount and also to evidence that you have fully considered it and and it is really um a low risk but also if it what if it did come in in a really benign way that you you were trained and ready to to sort of spot it and I think the same applies with with with the sanctions piece that we&#39;ve just finish talking about sanctions on the questionnaire um the one that I do see a lot of people getting caught out with is they do do some kind of sanctions checks they just don&#39;t document it very well um so having that in your firmwide risk assessment in your AML policy I think is a key piece uh and M and and may maybe make that part of the updates that you might make before you make this submission uh is is is probably a good piece of advice if you&#39;re going to look at your policies anyway make sure you&#39;ve got the sanctions piece up to date it certainly seems to be quite heavy Focus there whilst the S doesn&#39;t really have a remit on it um as I say there was an article this morning that they&#39; reported two two under law firms to the treasury for failures uh that I&#39;ve just seen this morning so uh it&#39;s certainly something that they are they are still taking actional yeah there&#39;s a question as well further up which um missed all glossed over but it was about um it&#39;s about in will insurers want these questions submitting and they likely to to call all these in um we&#39;ve not heard any Rumblings about that and um I certainly in the Octo I can&#39;t see it happening for the October renews um I doubt it to be honest with you just on a practical basis uh an underwriter would have to kind of waigh through and make an assessment and understand what all the questions are so I I think it&#39;s highly unlikely that they would call these question sets in just because it&#39;s not in a digestible uh you know format um I do think key questions might be pulled out for them to put in their proposal forms for example have you you know it might already be in there actually um have you do you are you holding any uh frozen assets for example or you know key questions which are um um are really critical to risk they might ask but I can&#39;t see them calling these in um what&#39;s potentially more likely and an Sr the SRA are making moves to do this more often is calling the independent audit from the uh that&#39;s required the AML audit that and but again it required that be a massive um sort of administrative task for the for the insurers to call them all in I just can&#39;t see see that happening but there might be a you know the more likely a question on um regulatory interest or whether you&#39;ve had to self report which is already in there um but certainly I can&#39;t there&#39;s nothing on our radar that they would be doing that no and I don&#39;t think that&#39;s the purpose of this at all now and and and if it was the SR would have to make it clear anyway um I think the purpose of to this is is to guide that risk-based approach for the SR on where they target their resources uh for visits and audits um yeah if there was an issue somewhere further down the line that resulted in some kind of uh AML or negligence issue it may well be that this questionnaire might might form part of a an Evidence package or something that you had to submit to the insurer um but I I don&#39;t see it being called in as As a matter of course or anything like that yeah and but and that the caveat to that being that the the insurers can change their mind about what they want at any point can&#39;t they and we saw that when um when the the Russia Russia conflict happened that there was right before renewal actually for for the April renewals there was very last minute requests from firms that had already put in The Proposal uh that the the insurers were asking very um detailed and pointed questions around client bases inv you know involving um Russia and and certain parts of uh Ukraine as well so at any point the you know depending on the you know economic climate and Regulatory landscape they can they can ask for what they want really um so I think probably the last piece just to say is that the these questions um are available on the SR uh page uh if you if you&#39;ve had um your email through you can go into that web page and find these these sample questions on there um similarly if you haven&#39;t had your email through you can just find them by searching Sr questionnaire in Google uh and it th and it will throw the web page up that way and you can go in and download these questions so again if you want to if you want to have a look at these questions uh ahead of the portal opening uh to help you get together all your all your info and and your evidence and your information uh I&#39;d suggest doing that go and download these from the SR page um as we said at the beginning the indication is that this is uh whilst it&#39;s a specimen only on them um the indication is that this this is what the questions will be when when they come out maybe some some minor tweaks to them but I would use this as a good base to go and get your information together yeah and I think just on a on a practical level we&#39;ve already said if you if you do want a copy of that proliferation financing risk assessment that we&#39;ve got which is we&#39;re happy to to sort of share and get in touch but on a more practical basis if you think if you&#39;re looking at all this and thinking you know what our pcps are no our policies procedures and controls are nowhere near where they should be we we can support on that um so when we send out copy of the recording we&#39;ll send out you know some details of how we can support on that so do we can either do a review and repair um job on your your documents or um you know an independent review if you need that or even just just some support or training we can we can offer that as well just so you feel a bit more confident as you&#39;re go in answering these questions yeah so we&#39;ll do we&#39;ll run another one of these as well I think when the portal opens won&#39;t we because there&#39;s no doubt there&#39;ll be more snags when that opens we&#39;ll just do another another sort of topup session I&#39;m just checking the questions as well um oh yeah we&#39;ve got that&#39;s really good yeah so we&#39;re just getting some comments back found many people found it sort of useful and we&#39;re happy to do more of these um style sessions aren&#39;t we Gavin kind of like going through uh so on a really practical basis some you know whether it&#39;s what the SRA are asking or you know um other compliance topics so we&#39;re we&#39;re here to help so if you do have any um uh areas that you think do you know what we could do with a Q&amp;A session on that do get in touch as well because we&#39;re we&#39;re going to be running these sessions fairly regularly aren&#39;t we on different topics as as I think yeah hopefully that&#39;s the that&#39;s the plan and and as Kate says we&#39;ll we&#39;ll run another one of these when the portal opens maybe maybe slightly more as a questions and answers session uh than going through the questions the whole questionnaire again because I&#39;m sure there will people will have uh questions that they need answers to when the portal opens yeah no perfect wonderful and and and we&#39;ve also got a lot of free we um free webinars on our website haven&#39;t we hi ris.com so if you you know we&#39;ve got um videos on crypto and sorcer funds and all sorts so there&#39;s a Tre Treasure Trove there if if this has wetted your appetites um but yes I think that&#39;s I think that&#39;s a wrap and we&#39;re right on time really aren&#39;t we Gavin so yeah I think so yeah um I&#39;ve got nothing else to add at the moment but I&#39;m I&#39;m happy with that yeah wonderful okay thank you everyone thanks thanks all bye

Transcript for:Upcoming AML and Financial Sanctions Webinar

Transcript for:
Upcoming AML and Financial Sanctions Webinar