Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022

Overview

This Act contains provisions aimed at strengthening the UK's ability to combat and prevent serious economic crime, and is intended to act as a deterrent to those who would seek to hide and launder the proceeds of bribery, corruption and organised crime in land in the UK. The Act has four main objectives:

• Prevent and combat the use of land in the UK for money laundering purposes by increasing the transparency of beneficial ownership information relating to overseas entities that own land in the UK. The Act therefore creates a register of the beneficial owners of such entities. The register will be held by Companies House and made public.
• Reform the UK’s Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO) regime to enable law enforcement to investigate the origin of property and recover the proceeds of crime. The measures in the Act aim to strengthen the UK’s fight against serious economic crime; to clarify the scope of UWO powers; and to increase and reinforce operational confidence in relation to UWO powers.
• Amend financial sanctions legislation, including the monetary penalty legal test and information sharing powers to help deter and prevent breaches of financial sanctions.
• Amend sanctions legislation to enable Ministers to impose sanctions quicker and in concert with others. The measures in the Act reform how sanctions are imposed, how sanctions are reviewed, and how challenges to sanctions are dealt with.