From 1 October, the National Crime Agency has implemented a new policy of rejecting consent requests that do not include reasons for suspicion or a statement regarding criminal property, and closing them without further input.
The NCA has done this in order to reduce the delays impacting all areas of the Suspicious Activity Report regime. Average turnaround times for consent requests have slowed significantly, which the NCA believes is due to the absence of key elements of information that should be known from initial discussions with a client, or potential client.
If rejected by the NCA, the reporter will be sent a notification of disclosure letter outlining the reasons why.
Until consent is received, the firm submitting the report is forbidden to undertake any prohibited transactions, such as accepting money into a client’s account, or performing conveyancing services for them.
This represents a significant potential handicap, particularly when urgent business is involved, and could potentially hinder the relationship with clients, which need to be managed carefully to avoid ‘tipping off’ offences – that is, disclosing to the person who is the subject of a SAR that an investigation is taking place.
If you are concerned at the state of the current delays, then you can help yourself by making sure that you observe a series of rudimentary precautions to avoid creating these in the future.
Thankfully, most investment business (savings, protection and pension switching), is low-risk from a financial crime perspective, and therefore unlikely to provide grounds to arouse suspicion.
However, this is not to suggest they are in any way exempt, so do not expose yourself to the risk of breaching the rules by being complacent.
If any staff member knows or suspects that a money-laundering offence under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 or other financial crime, is taking place they must report if to their money-laundering reporting officer, who in turn should report it to the NCA.
If consent from the NCA is needed, then no further substantive action should be taken unless or until it is received.
However, this will not prevent the matter from being progressed in terms of writing letters or conducting searches, provided they do not commit a tipping-off offence.
All staff should be trained to recognise what constitutes a tip-off, and how to avoid the unwitting ways of doing so.
Without wishing to state the obvious, when making a SAR, try to include as much detail as you can, and use the SAR glossary codes from the NCA website to help narrow things down.
A lack of relevant information, resulting in a rejection, will see the case treated as though it has not been raised. If that happens, you have a further 31 days to challenge the decision.
No further communication after that means that consent has been granted. But if rejected again, that decision is final.
Simon Thomas is head of policy of Tenet Group
