Our February compliance update webinar saw a number of key issues being covered. We discussed lots of topics from the 5th AML directive to reporting to the SRA, as well as scam emails and cyber-risk and continuing competence. 2020 is already becoming a real challenge for some law firms the pressure is unlikely to reduce anytime soon.
- Topic:
- Legal
Our webinar series entitled 'Working with the SRA's Standards and Regulations' kicked off this week. Our first webinar covered all areas risk management and started by looking at the challenges faced by law firms, including:
- A lack of understanding about the role of risk management
- Recognising what risks law firms face
- Difficulty in assessing risk levels, likelihood, consequences, and working out which risks to focus on first
- What mitigating risks involves.
- Topic:
- Legal
If the number of complaints and negligence claims we, regulators and insurers see is anything to go by, it is clear that some solicitors are not as good as they and their colleagues think they are. But it does not stop at solicitors, especially when many firms employ non-solicitors to carry out various aspects of work on client matters! Read on to learn more, plus our advice on the steps you can take to ensure the continuing competence of solicitors
- Topic:
- Legal
Our recent webinar looking at the new STaRs revealed some very interesting poll data, which showed a rather mixed picture of firms’ progress towards full compliance under the new regime.
- Topic:
- Legal
The SRA has recently sent out an email to 7,000 Compliance Officers for Legal Practice (COLPs) asking them to confirm the following:
“I confirm that the information I have given is correct, to the best of my knowledge and belief and that I will notify you if anything changes in respect of the information provided in the future”.
The declaration requires all firms who fall within the scope of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (the Regulations), to declare they have a compliant firm-wide risk assessment in place that takes account of information published by the SRA and includes references to the firms' customers, countries or geographic areas in which it operates, products and services, transaction and delivery channels.
If you have not received this email, we recommend that you contact the SRA immediately to avoid missing the deadline to respond (31st January 2020).
- Topic:
- Legal
What is 5AMLD?
5AMLD follows on as a series of updates to the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive that came into UK law via the Money Laundering Regulations 2017.
- Topic:
- Legal
As we move closer to the Christmas break many of you will be looking forward to a well-earned rest and may be thinking that you can take a break from dealing with compliance, but unfortunately 2020 is going to be just as busy as 2019 has been, so preparing for compliance in the New Year is going to be as important as ever.
- Topic:
- Legal
In an ideal world incidents and issues would not happen, but unfortunately, we don’t work in such a world. At some point something is likely to go wrong whether it be a mistake on a client file, or a cyber breach or incident. When an incident does occur, rectifying and learning from it is the important thing.
The SRA recognises that firms don’t operate in an ideal world and that incidents happen, but they will be looking for firms to act appropriately in resolving issues and making sure any detriment to clients and reputational damage to the profession is reduced as much as possible.
- Topic:
- Legal
Almost all solo-regulated FCA firms will be expected to comply with the regime by 9 December 2019.
These are our top five tips for what you should have done and be doing now to prepare:
- Topic:
- Legal
The threat from cyber-attack continues to grow, many organisations are making the decision to remove Flash from the corporate desktop to reduce risk.
