UK: Criminal Finances Bill - second reading in the House of Lords

The Criminal Finances Bill was introduced in the House of Commons last year and is now proceeding through the House of Lords. Yesterday the Bill received its second reading: see here. The Bill contains, amongst other things, provisions that will introduce a new corporate offence of the failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion. Further background information about this new offence is available here. Draft Government guidance is also available: see here (pdf).

Second reading provided an opportunity for general debate and one topic dominated: the transparency of beneficial ownership information in the Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories, and the extent to which the Government should through legislation take action to bring about more rapid improvements in the information that is publicly available.