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Banks must declare links to Panama Papers law firm by next week Banks must declare links to Panama Papers law firm by next week
(35 minutes later)
The UK’s financial regulator has handed banks and financial businesses a deadline of next week to check if they have links to a law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers leak. Banks and financial firms have been told to hand over any information about their dealings with the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers to the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority by a week on Friday.
The Financial Conduct Authority has told banks they have until April 15 to investigate whether they have ties to Mossack Fonseca or firms which are managed by the company, according to a letter seen by the Financial Times. The City regulator had written to major financial firms on Monday, as the details of the accounts handled by the law firm Mossack Fonseca began to emerge, to ask what information banks held about any dealings with it and gave them 10 days to provide any details they may have.
“Beyond 15 April we will require updates on any significant issues or relationships identified and a full response, detailing your findings, when your investigation is concluded,” the letter said, according to the FT, which said it was dated 4 April. Around 20 firms have received the correspondence from the FCA, which is responsible for regulating City firms and has made tackling money laundering and financial crime one of its seven priorities for this year.
The demand comes after a leak of more than 11m documents from the law firm in Panama, which has prompted reverberations around the world. Related: What are the Panama Papers? A guide to history's biggest data leak
More details soon … The 15 April deadline for information about dealings with Mossack Fonseca is contained in the letter, which also asks what action they are taking as a result of the release of the 11.5m files from the Panama-based law firm.
“Beyond 15 April we will require updates on any significant issues or relationships identified and a full response, detailing your findings, when your investigation is concluded,” the letter said, according to the Financial Times (£).
On Tuesday, the FCA revealed it has written to the firms about the revelations which have caused reverberations around the globe. “The FCA has written to a number of firms about this issue, including those on our systematic anti-money laundering programme, and we are working closely with a number of other agencies who are also looking at this,” the FCA said.
“As part of our responsibility to ensure the integrity of the UK financial markets we require all authorised firms to have systems and controls in place to mitigate the risk that they might be used to commit financial crime,” the regulator had said.
Panama Papers reporting team: Juliette Garside, Luke Harding, Holly Watt, David Pegg, Helena Bengtsson, Simon Bowers, Owen Gibson and Nick Hopkins