Ministers crack down on dirty money

The Times assesses the unveiling of the UK Government's updated anti-corruption strategy, noting that it will in practice necessitate a major expansion of the domestic corruption unit at the City of London police.

How much more heat professional service firms — and especially lawyers — will face remains to be seen. But the Whitehall move came only a week after it emerged that watchdogs had imposed fines of about £550,000 in the past three months on legal practices that had breached basic anti-money laundering rules.

Last month the annual report from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) revealed that nearly a third of law firms had breached anti-money laundering rules over the past year, with fines totalling nearly £1.5 million.

Louise Hodges, Chair of the CLLS Corporate Crime & Corruption Committee, is quoted as saying "The new funding being reported is modest in the scheme and whether it is more effective to have another 100 recommendations is debatable".