Extract from Commons
end of day adjournment debate on Money Laundering and Tax
Evasion (Azerbaijan)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy (Margot James):...The
Government are committed to making the United Kingdom’s financial
system a hostile environment for illicit finance. The National
Crime Agency takes allegations such as those identified by the
right hon. Lady seriously, and will consider carefully whether
recent information would allow an investigation to proceed. The
Government pursue a targeted but proportionate level of
enforcement that focuses on achieving compliance from companies.
We seek to counter financial crime while protecting the dynamism
of the UK’s business environment...
...If irregularities are raised, Companies House follows up with
the company in question, and in most cases any inaccuracies are
corrected immediately. There were over 2 billion searches of the
Companies House register in 2016-17, which indicates that the
data are available and under scrutiny. Companies House works
closely with enforcement agencies such as the National Crime Agency in sharing data
analysis to combat economic crime...
To read the whole debate, CLICK
HERE
Extract from
Lords oral answer on South Africa: Money
Laundering
(Lab):...May I thank the
Chancellor for ensuring that the Financial Conduct Authority, the
Serious Fraud Office and the National Crime Agency investigate
HSBC, Standard Chartered Banks and Baroda Bank, each of which
expert South African whistleblowers have told me must have been
conduits for the corrupt proceeds of money stolen from their
taxpayers and laundered through Dubai and Hong Kong? In my letter
of 25 September to the Chancellor, I supplied for investigation
27 names and personal identification numbers, including President
Jacob Zuma, 11 members of his family, 11 members of his close
friends, the Gupta family, and their five associates, together
with 14 entities linked to the Guptas and suspected to have been
set up for the purposes of transnationally laundering an
estimated £400 million, or 7 billion rand, of their illicit
proceeds. Will he ensure that those banks, together with the
European banks—about which I have similarly written to Commission
President Juncker—track down that laundered money, return it to
the South African Treasury and supply evidence to its officials
to enable the prosecution of all those connected with such
corruption?
To read all the exchanges, CLICK
HERE
