MLR1PP2150 - MLR1 penalties guidance: using this penalties guidance: introduction

This guidance can be used by both businesses and our staff.

Businesses can use this guidance to check if penalties are correct but must not rely on it to help them comply with the requirements of the Regulations. The guidance that can be relied on for this is our sector specific anti-money laundering guidance and our registration guidance available on our website.

This guidance specifically covers the range of penalties, sanctions and other measures available to us when businesses that are supervised for anti-money laundering purposes by HMRC are not fully compliant with the Regulations. This guidance also includes full details of the processes and administrative procedures for all civil penalties and other sanctions including:

• how to determine what is the appropriate penalty or sanction in a given situation
• how to calculate the size of a civil penalty
• referral for consideration of criminal investigation
• the administrative action Officers must follow when issuing a penalty and
• the penalty Review and Appeals procedure and gateway.

This guidance is not intended to be a set of instructions which are followed from the beginning to end. Once you have considered the relevant background information in any other relevant guidance, you should use this guidance to determine if a penalty is due and how this should be calculated or if a different sanction is more appropriate.

If you are a business who has received a letter stating our intention to issue a penalty, a full explanation of how the proposed penalty was arrived at will be sent with this pre-penalty notice. This guidance will enable you to check that it has been calculated correctly and the relevant factors have been considered. If you do not agree you have 30 days to comment. This is explained fully in MLR1PP11050