UK Offence Report

Systems and training to prevent money laundering

regulation 5(2) of The Money Laundering Regulations 1993

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

2 Any person who contravenes this regulation shall be guilty of an offence and liable—

a on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment not exceeding

a term of two years or

a fine or both;

b on summary conviction, to

a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
contravening a requirement of the instrument
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach regulation 5(2)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes this regulation.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Money Laundering Regulations 1993, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

expressed as the statutory maximum (the prescribed sum): the same words mean £5,000 in England and Wales and £10,000 in Scotland.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Revoked
Revoked by
The Money Laundering Regulations 2003
Made
28 July 1993
In force from
1 April 1994
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations give effect to articles 3, 4, 10 and 11 of the Council Directive No. 91/308/EEC on prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering (OJ No. L166, 28.6.91, p. 77). In so far as other new legislative provision was needed to implement the other provisions of the Directive, this provision is contained in the Criminal Justice Act 1993 (c. 36). The Regulations come into force on 1 April 1994. Various words and expression used in the Regulations are defined in regulations 2, 3 and 4. Where business relationships (regulation 3) are formed, or one-off transactions are carried out, in the course of “relevant financial business” (regulation 4) the persons carrying out that business are required to maintain certain procedures for the purposes of forestalling or preventing money laundering (these include the procedures set out in regulations 7, 9, 12 and 14). They are also required to train their employees in those procedures and, more generally, in the recognition of money laundering transactions and the law relating to money laundering. A person who fails to maintain the procedures and carry out the training is guilty of an offence (regulation 5). Where an offence is committed by a body corporate, partnership or unincorporated association, directors and managers of those bodies and certain other specified persons are guilty of the offence (regulation 6). Except where an exemption is provided under regulation 10, satisfactory evidence of the identity of an applicant for business must be obtained in the circumstances described in regulation 7. Payment from (broadly speaking) a bank or building society account may be acceptable evidence of a person’s identity where it is reasonable for the payment to be made by post (regulation 8). Where the applicant for business is, or may be, acting on behalf of another person, reasonable measures must be taken to obtain evidence of the identity of that other person (regulation 9). Provision as to when evidence is satisfactory for the purposes of the Regulations and as to how quickly it must be obtained is contained in regulation 11. Records of all identification evidence that has been obtained and of all transactions with applicants for business that have been carried out must be kept for the period of five years (regulations 12 and 13). Within each relevant financial business, a person must be identified as the person to whom a report is to be made of any information that gives rise to a knowledge or suspicion that money laundering is taking place. That person must consider the reports and, if he also forms the view that money laundering may be taking place, he is required to make a report to a constable (regulation 14). Where supervisory authorities (regulation 15) obtain information indicative of money laundering, they are required to make a report to a constable (regulation 16). Inspectors and certain other persons who work with supervisory authorities under various statutory provisions are required to report any such information to the relevant supervisory authority or to a constable.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

Other offences in the same instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”
Confidence
0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source