Suspicious activity reporting

CIMA is listed as a Supervisory Authority under Schedule 3 of the Money Laundering Regulations 2007, and all CIMA members in practice (unless they are required to register with another Supervisory Authority) are supervised by CIMA.

Your institute works closely with the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) through personal contact and through the SOCA Regulators’ Forum, which meets quarterly.

SOCA has reminded us that the UK Home Office consulted in 2007 on the Prescribed Form for reporting Suspicious Activities (SARs) to SOCA. It was to be announced that from 1 April 2008, the standard means of reporting SARS would be online. All SARs should then have been typed for submission; this would have enabled substantial gains in efficiency.

For most members this would not be a problem, as the SARs can be submitted online. But should you have needed to download forms for completion, completing them by hand would no longer have been accepted.

Under recent legislation amending the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) s339, it was intended that it should have become a criminal offence not to follow this instruction. Being already also a criminal offence, punishable by a fine, not to report suspicious activity (POCA s330/331), a Member or student in the position of having a SAR to report would have had little alternative but to conform.

Section 2.8 onwards of the CCAB Anti-Money Laundering Guidance covers this in detail.

However, the Home Office has stepped back at the last minute from taking this step, which some may perceive as draconian.

To clarify the situation, handwritten SARs will still be accepted; but it will be best practice to submit SARs online or otherwise typed. Be prepared for the eventual change; once that comes in, any handwritten submission made will be rejected and the reporter, should he or she decide not to resubmit it, will not only have committed a criminal offence, but be deprived of a defence before the courts.