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Amethis Finance and Metier partner to acquire a significant minority stake in Kenafric Industries Limited, the East African leader in the confectionery sector.
Amethis Finance and Metier are pleased to announce their partnership with Kenafric Industries (“Kenafric”), in the acquisition of a significant minority stake in their packaged food business.
The Kenafric Group was founded in 1987 by Velji Punja Shah and his four sons. The Group has grown to emerge as a major FMCG group in East Africa, having diversified into confectionery, footwear, culinary and stationery manufacturing. This transaction is limited to the confectionery and culinary business and the Shah family will continue to operate the footwear and stationery business separately. Amethis has a long-standing relationship with the Shah Family and the transaction developed as a result of this relationship.
Kenafric enjoys a leading position in the packaged food sector, being one of the best known local FMCG brands in East Africa. Kenafric is engaged in the manufacture, branding and distribution of confectionery, snacks, ready-to-drink juices and culinary spices products. The company is unique in the packaged food sector in East Africa, having built strong entry barriers based on: (1) a capillary distribution network, (2) strong premium brands and (3) a pan-African regional footprint. Kenafric sells around 45% of its production outside Kenya.
“Having built a trustworthy relationship with Kenafric’s management over the past years, we are excited about this partnership which will allow Kenafric to leverage on its strong existing base to expand into a diversified packaged food platform in East Africa. Thanks to this partnership, Kenafric is now poised to engage into a new phase of its history” said Jean-Sebastien Bergasse, the Amethis Partner in charge of the project.
For Metier, a proven leader in Southern African Private Equity, this marks its first investment in Kenya. Metier enjoys a long and successful track-record in private equity investing in Southern Africa and has already realized and successfully exited similar transactions in the packaged food industry.
“We are excited about the partnership with Amethis and Metier. Through this investment, we will seek to leverage the deep relationships that they enjoy in the region, operational support and a strong capital base to accelerate future growth’”, commented Bharat Shah, Chairman at Kenafric.
BellHouse Capital, Pratul Shah and Bowmans Law acted as the Company’s transaction advisers while Anjarwala & Khanna and KPMG represented the investors.
The company Aquarama, which belongs to the family Bosio, concluded the important acquisition of Hypromat, Franco-Swiss multinational company operating in the Italian territory with 19 plants owned in the car wash industry. The fallout of this acquisition is to be assessed positively in terms of employment; the acquisition does not include layoffs or mobility for the staff of the newly acquired group.
The investment of Aquarama (from 10 years on the market) is in addition to those already carried out and ongoing in the Novello headquarters, where more than 110 employees are employed, and the various branches and offices abroad (Switzerland, Spain, South America). The group currently has over 180 employees and exports to over 40 countries.
The acquisition was made through its subsidiary Aquarama Gest, who deals with car wash facilities management, and allows the same to earn today's leading position in the domestic market.
Aquarama has also invested in other strategic companies upstream, such as Saet, in regard to electronics, in line with their own quality policies being able to manage the production of the whole chain. The Bosio family is already looking more and more to deal in order to improve both the product and the services as well as the area of influence in the world.
The acquisition has been assisted by the law firm Pedersoli of Milan, as well as by the financial Ersel and the tax firm Gianni hood.
Article written by Rohit Talwar, CEO and Alexandra Whittington, Senior Foresight Researcher at Fast Future Publishing.
AI and the New Business Agenda
As futurists, we focus on helping leaders to drive exponential growth by anticipating and exploiting the forces, ideas and opportunities shaping the future. Exponential growth is now a viable goal - across every sector, businesses are harnessing the power of Artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies to drive step change improvements compared to industry norms. AirBnB handles 90 times more bedrooms per employee than the average hotel group; Tangerine serves seven times more customers per employee than the typical bank; Broad Group in China can erect a 57 storey building in 19 days; and Local Motors can develop new designs for its 3D printed cars at one thousandth of the cost of a typical competitor and manufacture each car 5-22 times faster. These firms are now increasingly asking their lawyers what they are doing to deliver a similar scale of improvement. After the shock wears off, lawyers are beginning to see the growth potential an exponential approach enables – and AI is increasingly seen as a key to help unlock the opportunity.
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Two years ago, law firms would laugh when we suggested putting AI on the agenda in our future strategy workshops. Today it seems to be pretty much the only thing they want to talk about. Why? Well they are beginning to acknowledge that AI has the potential to disrupt all industries and the legal sector in particular. The next 5-10 years could see a total transformation in how the sector operates and in the scale of legal opportunities emerging from AI and other exponential technologies disrupting existing industries and spawning new ones. While some worry about the application of these technologies eroding the US $650 billion global legal sector, others are captivated by the opportunities resulting from AI and its cousins reinventing the US $78 trillion global economy – which could grow to US $120 trillion by 2025 – with over 50% of that coming from fledgling firms and companies and sectors that don’t yet exist.
So what is this magical new elixir that could bring down governments and reinvent the global economy? Artificial intelligence is a field of computer science focused on creating intelligent software tools that replicate critical human mental faculties. The range of AI applications include speech recognition, language translation, visual perception, learning, reasoning, inference, planning, and decision-making.
The pace of development is accelerating and astounding even those in the AI sector. In March 2016, Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo system beat the world GO champion, demonstrating the speed of development taking place in machine learning - AIs core technology. The board game GO has over 560 million possible moves – you cannot teach the system all the rules and permutations. Instead, AlphaGo’s powerful machine learning algorithm observed thousands of games to deduced the rules and possible moves. This same technology can now be used across the various datasets held by law firms. A wide range of legal applications is emerging - such as inferring case outcomes, determining optimal contract structures, suggesting how to approach a new matter, or identifying emerging risks by analysing and interpreting data drawn from across the web.
Truly transformational impacts arise when AI is combined with accelerating science and technology developments in neuroscience, large scale databases, super-computing hardware, network communications, blockchain distributed ledger systems, digital currencies, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D / 4D printing, and cloud computing. For law firms in search of growth, this is key - these exponential technologies are transforming old industries, enabling new ones and generating concepts that require new legal thinking e.g. self-owning assets.
A Technological Revolution Means New Opportunities for Law Firms
A good example of innovation driving law firm growth comes from US-based Perkins Coie. Dax Hansen, a partner specialising in IT, payments and international transactions spotted the growth opportunities presented by digital currencies such as Bitcoin and their enabling technology – the blockchain. In May 2013, Hansen established the first legal blockchain practice, which now has over 40 lawyers advising on blockchain in areas such as digital currencies, capital markets and distributed applications. This type of foresight is exactly what law firms need to remain relevant in the dawning technological revolution. The three previous revolutions gave us steam-based mechanisation, electrification and mass production, and then electronics, information technology and automation. This fourth era of smart machines is fueled by exponential improvement and convergence of multiple technological fields - driving new opportunities for legal.
Within law firms, applications are emerging across the legal lifecycle – encompassing opportunity identification, bid development, negotiation, matter research and execution, litigation, outcome prediction, legal analytics and decision support, risk assessment, client reporting, obligations management, and project management, process design and practice governance. As a result, there are now clear examples of law firms using AI to gain a competitive edge. For example, Denton’s, Baker & Hostetler and Latham & Watkins are all deploying Ross Intelligence in key business applications. Robolawyer Ross is an example of the exponential potential of legal AI software; it went from student project to global law darling in less than two years – highlighting AI’s potential to transform industries from the inside and out. In legal, AIs transformative edge is that it creates new services which the firm can offer to clients whilst also forcing the evolution of business models to encompass new legal services and billing approaches. These are early indicators of an accelerating cascade of changes – which demand the development of a foresight mindset to help firms anticipate and navigate what’s next – effectively and profitably.
Business models for law firms are evolving in part because technology is proving adept at absorption of routine tasks like discovery, case research, and contract drafting. Automated services like Rocket Lawyer and LexisNexis are nothing new. As AI advances (and we actually do expect it will eventually become commonplace in every business), law firms will need to balance short term priorities with the more fundamental strategic shifts required to address the service opportunities emerging on the five-to-ten-year horizon.
Artificial intelligence is also reshaping legal services from the ground up – potentially bypassing traditional providers. For example, the acclaimed DoNotPay chatbot provides an automated online service to challenge parking tickets. Joshua Browder’s iconic contribution to the LegalTech ecosystem is the poster child for the future of DIY, mobile-friendly, tech-savvy legal applications. Solutions are emerging for applications as diverse as completing divorce proceedings, class actions, fighting homeless evictions and filing refugee visa applications. The disruptive impact of DoNotPay and others should inspire two questions in every firm: “When might these start to impact our firm’s work?” And, “Should we create the next one?”
Near Term: Where AI Could Go in the Next 3-5 Years
In the next three years, we expect the stakes to rise as AI penetrates deeper - with widespread and accelerating deployment of AI on core internal law firm processes, and clear evidence of smart technologies directly replacing lawyers. Equally, we’ll see AI extending beyond law firms; a significant range of AI-based solutions will emerge for in-house legal and online services for consumers, SMEs and highly automated businesses looking to control costs. Newer technology-centric firms will drive more widespread adoption of blockchain and smart contracts. The public and private sectors will start making use of “zero employee” fully automated distributed autonomous organisations (DAOs). Finally, the continued evolution of AI functionality, combined with innovative new legal service models, will result in truly AI-centric law firms.
In five years, we could reasonably expect applications emerging with near-human levels of intelligence (Artificial General Intelligence) in specific domains. Routine legal work will increasingly be automated with up to 50% of tasks completed with no human involvement. Technology-centric sector entrants will emerge to compete with Big Law for the business of firms that might not even exist today. We will see the first examples of true Algocracy - with countries moving to digitising, automating and embedding the law in our physical world – imagine cars that fined us for speeding and TV sets that automatically submit video testimony of domestic crimes. Finally, the use of AI will increasingly be mandated by clients.
On the Horizon: Legal Services in the Next 5-10 Years
New Clients
The exponential growth opportunity for law firms emerges as clients start applying AI to transform their organisations, develop new offerings and create entirely new industries such as drone transportation, vertical farming and human enhancement. Offerings grounded in cutting-edge technologies, from life-extension and blockchain to IoT and AI will involve taking risks that test ethical and legal boundaries - particularly for early adopters and investors. There is also a growing sense that unchecked adoption of AI could cause harm, erode privacy and infringe rights, all of which are sources of legal opportunity.
Indeed, these exponentially intertwined technological changes on the horizon create what are often referred to as “existential risks.” Welcome or not, AI will drive change – creating immense uncertainties about its impact on society, business and government. For innovators, the legal costs could be trivial compared to the potential pay-off as they race to create the next wave of global business powerhouses and trillion dollar sectors. These ten sectoral and functional examples highlight what’s on the horizon:
New Business Models
We devised the seven scenarios below to help visualise the divergent range of possible future law firm business models. Each draws on similar driving forces, but highlight different ways in which current and new players might choose to respond. The scenarios have an ETA of 2023-2028 – but many are achievable now.
First Step: Visualise the Horizon
Our role as futurists is to provide legal sector leaders with a rapid and intense mental and sensory immersion into different possible futures. The goal is to help them explore the logical options, test their emotional reactions and then identify implications and options that feel right for their firm. Which AI-enabled opportunities beckon, and which repel? Which futures would allow legal work as we know it to thrive, and which require radically different mindsets, competencies and approaches? The applications and scenarios shared here represent a small selection of the possible futures which firms could select or create. Experience suggests that the difference between those who reach escape velocity and achieve exponential growth - and the rest - lies in the willingness to envisage and create preferred futures where we shape both the nature of the game and the rules by which it is played.
Xupes, a family-owned luxury e-commerce business, has secured £3 million of growth capital from Venture Capital Trust manager, Downing LLP.
Xupes was set up by son-father team, Joe and Frank McKenzie, in 2009. It initially specialised in the resale of high-end watches, art and antiques, and has since expanded to include jewellery and handbags, as well as becoming an accredited Cartier and Omega servicing centre. The business has grown rapidly since Joe started out in the comfort of his living room in Hertfordshire and it now has a 25-strong team managing the online store and providing expert restoration to products.
The multi-million pound funding from Downing managed funds will be invested in IT infrastructure, additional staff and further diversification of its product range in response to growing customer and product demand.
The e-commerce market has developed considerably in recent years, helped by an improved level of customer trust in online shopping and security. Further, the global market for luxury items has grown quickly, with sales of luxury watches expected to have grown at a rate of 5% p.a. between 2006 and 2016 and sales of leather goods (of which handbags are a key component) expected to have grown by 10% in the same period1. Xupes currently has over 6,000 items in stock and in excess of 11,000 customers, having grown from 2,000 items in stock and 4,500 members in just three years.
In addition to the online store, Xupes has a showroom located in stunning period premises at Wickham Hall, Bishops Stortford. Here customers can browse Xupes’ collection in person. A concierge service is also available for clients requiring assistance in locating particular items. The Xupes team works alongside collectors, boutiques and auction houses all over the world to source such items.
Xupes co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Joe McKenzie, commented:
“We’re confident that our market will continue to flourish led, in part, by an improved level of trust in internet purchases and greater appreciation of the importance of recycling timeless fashion and collectibles.”
James Lewis, Investment Director, Downing LLP, added:
“From the moment we met the Xupes team, we were impressed by their entrepreneurial spirit - an ethos shared by Downing. What’s great about this funding support is that it will allow the Xupes business to grow without compromising its core qualities, such as its exceptional quality of service.”
Hermes Investment Management - the £28.6 billion manager focused on delivering superior, sustainable, risk adjusted returns to its clients -, has completed a £29 million loan for its real estate debt strategy. Hermes Investment Management has provided senior financing to Thor Equities and Chenavari Investment Managers to fund the acquisition of 147-155 Wardour Street, London W1F.
The loan is the third financing deal Hermes Investment Management has provided to the joint venture of Thor Equities and Chenavari Investment Managers following the funding of two central London properties – 145 Oxford Street and Dover Street – last year. The £29 million loan is made up of an acquisition tranche and capex tranche to support the JV’s refurbishment and leasing plans for the asset.
This new loan brings the total amount Hermes Investment Management has invested in the UK real estate senior debt market to £360 million across 14 loans.
Vincent Nobel, Head of Real Estate Debt at Hermes Investment Management, said: “Providing funding for Thor Equities and Chenavari Investment Managers, to help support the refurbishment and leasing plans for 147-155 Wardour Street, will allow the JV to continue its strong European growth story. Their recent record of accomplishment for projects of this nature and our experience of working with them on the 145 Oxford Street and Dover Street transactions, gives us great confidence in their ability to transform this asset. The loan structure fits nicely within our revised lending mandate, allowing us to invest anywhere within the real estate capital structure.”
Jared Hart, Managing Director at Thor Equities, said: “We have built a fantastic partnership over three deals with Hermes Investment Management and hope to continue this through 2017 as we continue our focus on emerging locations in London, and other European cities.”
Sam Mellor, Partner at Chenavari Investment Management, said: “151 Wardour Street is an exciting opportunity and is in line with Chenavari’s investment strategy which focusses on targeting value add propositions in core locations across the UK and Europe. This marks our third transaction with Thor and Hermes and we look forward to building on this successful partnership into 2017 and beyond.”
Mid Europa Partners (Mid Europa), the leading private equity investor in Central and South Eastern Europe, announced today that it has entered into an agreement to sell Zabka Polska (‘Zabka’ or the ‘Company’), to funds advised by CVC Capital Partners (the ‘Transaction’). The Transaction is subject to customary competition authority clearance, and is expected to close in Q2 2017. Zabka sale is the largest ever transaction in the Polish food retail sector and the largest ever private equity exit in Poland. Together with the Alpha exit announced earlier this year, Mid Europa is poised to return over €1.1 billion to its investors during Q2 2017.
Robert Knorr, Co-Managing Partner of Mid Europa and head of its retail and consumer practice, commented: "Our successful exit from Zabka validates Mid Europa's focus on creating value through identifying, growing and exiting highly attractive retail businesses. Our recent investments in Allegro and Profi reaffirm our continued commitment to the CEE retail landscape. As in Zabka, where we built a clear regional champion with a store network of 4,500 outlets, we will continue supplementing the buy-and-build strategy with strong execution."
Zbigniew Rekusz, a member of the Mid Europa senior team who led the firm's investment into Zabka in 2011 and helped drive its transformational change until its exit in 2017 said: "We feel privileged having had the opportunity to work with Zabka management and continue to believe they are excellently placed to lead the Company through the next exciting growth cycle ahead."
The transaction execution was led by Berke Biricik with the support of Lukasz Wlodarczyk and Bartosz Malecki.
JP Morgan acted as exclusive financial adviser to Mid Europa, White & Case and CMS Cameron McKenna as its legal counsels, Ernst & Young as transaction services adviser, OC&C and Beragua as commercial advisers and ERM as its environmental, health and safety adviser.
TenCate Grass, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of innovative synthetic grass systems has announced its acquisition of longstanding strategic partner Ceelen Sport Constructies B.V. (CSC Sport), the Dutch contracting company that specialises in the construction and maintenance of synthetic sports fields.
This addition to the TenCate Grass group will enable an integrated approach for supplying and servicing top-class sports pitches in the Netherlands. CSC Sport will work in conjunction with TenCate Grass subsidiary GreenFields, a developer and supplier of multiple innovative tufted, woven and hybrid synthetic grass systems, recognised as one of the leaders in its industry. Together they will have the capability to provide customers and their end-users with an efficient service and an innovative offer of high quality synthetic grass yarns, components and systems whilst simultaneously providing construction, installation and maintenance expertise for the Dutch sports industry.
Integrated System Approach
Michael Vogel, CEO of TenCate Grass Holding, commented on the exciting announcement: “We are very pleased that CSC Sport, one of our strong and successful GreenFields partners, will now be forming an integral part of the TenCate Grass organisation. CSC Sport is a high-quality and longstanding expert in the synthetic grass industry and a key player in the Dutch market. The Dutch synthetic grass market is important for the supply and also for the development of innovative synthetic grass systems. Together with CSC Sport we will be able to reach the next level in high performance solutions for our customers and their end-users.”
Theo Ceelen and André Ceelen, directors of CSC Sport, added: “Joining TenCate Grass, CSC Sport becomes part of a successful and winning team. Working with the GreenFields organisation we can combine our bespoke construction capabilities with the highest quality synthetic tufted, woven and hybrid grass systems. We are looking forward to being part of this new collaboration and the opportunities it will bring.”
International law firms Clifford Chance LLP and Yegin Ciftci have advised HSBC Bank plc in connection with the recent financing of the state-of-the-art Elazig integrated health campus using the first ever greenfield project bond structure in the Turkish PPP market.
HSBC Bank plc acted as sole arranger and global coordinator in the bond issuance. This project has been recognised as a landmark project as the first-ever greenfield infrastructure project bond in Turkey, being also the first of a such project to have a 20-year maturity in the country featuring an innovative credit enhancement provided by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). In addition, the bonds were classified as "green and social" by the environmental, social and governance rating firm Vigeo EIRIS.
This transaction is expected to pave the way for other infrastructure projects to take advantage of the Turkish capital markets as an innovative alternative source of financing rather than relying on traditional funding sources.
Yegin Ciftci acted as Turkish legal counsel to HSBC Bank plc, with the firm's finance team being led by partner Mete Yegin, whilst the Clifford Chance team was co-led by Paris-based partner Daniel Zerbib and London-based partner Clare Burgess, supported by a team of lawyers in London, Paris and Luxembourg. The team at Yegin Ciftci further comprised counsel Gozde Cankaya, senior associate Sait Eryilmaz and associates Gokce Uzun and Gozde Ozbeden. Key members of the Clifford Chance cross-border team included London-based senior associate Lucy Carr and associates Kathryn McArdle, Eimear O'Dwyer, and Russell Harris, with support from trainee solicitors Michael Obiri-Darko and Stephanie Ofili; Paris-based counsel Julien Rocherieux and Luxembourg partner Steve Jacoby and senior associate Markus Waitschies. A separate Clifford Chance team, led by partner Bruce Kahl, advised the trustee, and teams led by partners Catherine McCarthy, Emma Folds and Anne Drakeford advised certain investors.
Donnery & Co solicitors in an Irish law firm established by Elizaveta Donnery, a Russian speaking solicitor who is qualified and practicing in Ireland; she is also qualified in Russia and admitted on roll of solicitors in England and Wales. Elizaveta Donnery is the only solicitor in Ireland with these types of qualifications and experience; further to this, she writes a weekly legal column in newspaper and has appeared on RTE radio and Dublin City FM.
She speaks with Lawyer Monthly about her unique expertise and the connection between Ireland and Russia.
What are your goals which involve Russian and Irish connections?
One of my goals is to develop further economic activity and business relationships between Ireland, UK, Russia and other countries. I aim to provide high quality legal advice to all clients who are interested in investing either funds or highly skilled workers into the Irish economy. I also aim to continue working with the Irish Russia Business Association (IRBA), Enterprise Ireland, Embassies and other organisations in order to achieve my goal!
How are the legal sectors different in Russia, in comparison to Ireland? If you could adopt certain policies from each jurisdiction’s legal sector, what would you mix and change for the better?
Irish and Russian judicial systems are very different, however, after being involved in litigation in both jurisdictions I can say that there is a certain cross over. Russian system does rely on precedents; however, the Judges also compare cases and may in certain areas on law use previous decisions as guidelines.
How do your commercial disputes differ from the private clients? How do you use your expertise to manage this accordingly?
Prior to setting up in practice I worked as a solicitor in the largest Irish corporate law firm. I’m a Council member of Irish Russian Business association and holder of Law Society Diploma in Finance Law. These qualifications and experience are very helpful when dealing with international commercial clients. Working with private clients requires slightly different set of skills and different approach. I think any modern lawyer has to be flexible in terms of skills and approach to various clients. I find it very interesting and challenging when there is a correlation between commercial and private client issues. I apply my previous corporate legal experience and knowledge of general practice areas and immigration law on a daily basis when dealing with my clients.
I think a key to a successful practice is to be able to develop an individual approach to each client and their needs. This is now especially prevalent with the legal sector and society in general facing massive challenges in immigration law and human rights issues.
What positive changes have you seen overtime in Irish Finance Law?
Introduction of Commercial Court and Court of Appeal are very positive, in my view. Introduction of Immigrant investment programmes by the Department of Justice and Equality is a very positive step as it was designed to attract highly skills individuals, investors and companies with innovative approach to Ireland.
Article written by Amy Bell – Chair of Money Laundering Task Force, The Law Society
Criminals rely on the services of legal professionals to assist them – often unknowingly – in laundering the proceeds of serious and organised crime, which is estimated to cost £24 billion to the UK economy each year. Though harnessing professionals’ knowledge is a pattern as old as time, working practices have now changed along with the nature of organised crime. For starters, most money launderers will operate in businesses that strive to look legitimate, making the job of spotting illegal activity ever more challenging.
Yet since the creation of the Participation Offence in the Serious Crime Act 2015, the potential for being caught up in money laundering has grown, and consequences can include: losing your practising certificate, irreparable damage to your reputation, significant fines and up to five years in prison.
Risk-based compliance and due diligence procedures are key to spotting the signs of criminal activity, and submitting SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports) will not only ensure you comply with the law, but also play a part in tackling money laundering before unlawful funds enter the economic system.
Ask
The first question to ask when contracted for new business (regardless of your firm’s size or reputation) is “why me?”; this is especially relevant if a client is atypical to your usual client demographic. When determining if you are a logical fit, pay attention to your client’s scale, sector and jurisdiction.
If you suspect something, facing it head on by enquiring directly is the most effective tactic. Be alert to evasive and/or vague responses that could point to criminal behaviour. In your initial investigative work, you can use a variety of online tools to help verify client details, such as Companies House, which currently holds details of 3.5 million companies registered in the UK and has become one of the most open and extensively accessed registers in the world.
You could also try gathering more information by visiting your client’s premises during normal working hours, which will enable you to both gauge the authenticity of the business while also testing the accuracy of the information you have been provided. Empty premises at peak time should raise a red flag for starters.
Red Flags
Along with the aforementioned example, warning signs include: inconsistencies in the information provided, cash-rich or cash-only businesses, infrequent or atypical funds, along with inconsistencies in transactions. Following a well-documented risk-based approach can alert you to any red flags to be suspicious of.
The one way to safeguard your practice is by continuously carrying out comprehensive due diligence on both new and existing clients. Collecting copies of passport and utility bills alone may not always constitute an adequate due diligence process. Comprehensive due diligence should be risk-based, include both lateral and critical thinking, and if relevant, an examination of all beneficial owners with an interest of 25%.
Act
Once you are confident of your suspicions, you must make use of the proper reporting process. Keep in mind that this is not about proving criminal actions beyond any reasonable doubt or even about building a case against a client; rather it is alerting “a possibility, which is more than fanciful, that the relevant facts exist” (R vs. Da Silva 2006).
Further, under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, submitting a SAR is a legal as well as an ethical obligation. Due to the crucial role confidentiality plays in solicitors’ line of work, they are often fearful of putting their professionalism at stake. But if standard guidelines are followed, the solicitor is complying with the law, which is required by the SRA Code of Conduct. By providing the NCA with the necessary information to investigate suspicious activity, they can ultimately bring criminals to justice. If in doubt, consult the National Crime Agency’s guidelines to submitting good quality SARs.
Help
Because solicitors often work within the financial sector, we are in a unique position to mitigate the risks and rid the UK of this burden – remember, money laundering can continue the cycle of serious and organised crime, such as drug smuggling, arms trade and even human trafficking. By remaining alert and vigilant to the red flags and taking appropriate action, you can help tackle it.
