---
title: "PLENITUDE INSIGHTS: The Unrelenting Pace of Legislative Development"
description: To demonstrate just how fast-paced regulatory development is, this paper looks back over the developments of the last four years.
---

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# [PLENITUDE INSIGHTS: The Unrelenting Pace of Legislative Development](https://www.plenitudeconsulting.com/news-insights/plenitude-insights-the-unrelenting-pace-of-legislative-development)

 Written by [Stephen Rowland](https://www.plenitudeconsulting.com/news-insights/author/stephen-rowland) | Jul 7, 2021 9:47:00 AM

The year 2017 is a good place to start as it was a big year for the UK financial crime legislative landscape. The UK was then a member of the European Union and June of that year was when EU member states had to transpose into their domestic law the provisions of the EU’s fourth money laundering directive. This directive constituted a major advancement on its predecessor and included, specifically, a requirement to create centrally held registers of the beneficial owners of corporate entities.  Another 2017 arrival on the UK statute books built upon the provisions of the then ground-breaking Bribery Act 2010 to create the UK’s second offence of failing to prevent wrong-doing by another. This time it was tax evasion that came within the crosshairs of the legislators as the failure to prevent tax evasion was criminalised in the Criminal Finances Act 2017.

The UK’s departure from the EU meant that several Acts and subsidiary legislation had to be amended. On a more than cosmetic scale, was the need for the UK to impose sanctions independently of the EU. This required the enactment of the Sanctions and Anti-money Laundering Act 2018. No longer being part of the EU, the UK also created its own list of high-risk countries for anti-money laundering purposes.

Notwithstanding its withdrawal from the EU, the UK implemented the fifth money laundering directive and did so by making amendments to the 2017 Money Laundering Regulations.   

These developments have given rise to the following:

- The Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017
- [Information about People with Significant Control (Amendment) Regulations 2017 ](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2017/693/pdfs/uksi_20170693_en.pdf)
- Criminal Finances Act 2017 
- Policing and Crime Act 2017 (part 8 deals with the enforcement of financial sanctions and gives the Treasury power to issue penalties for sanctions breaches – more will be said about this below).
- Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018
- [The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2019](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/1511/contents/made)
- The Counter-Terrorism (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
- The Counter-Terrorism (International Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
- The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 (regulation 5 of which inserted a requirement into the 2017 Money Laundering Regulations to report any discrepancies in the Persons of Significant Control register)
-  [Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) (High-Risk Countries) Regulations 2021)](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2021/392/regulation/2/made)

 

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