Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Debate between Liam Byrne and Alison Thewliss

Report stage
Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

Yes. I have remarked in Committee, as the Minister will well remember, on the number of occasions when he agrees with himself, but not as a Minister. It is a curious situation and I will return to that when we get to the part of the Bill with which he is most associated.

As the Minister said, and as we all acknowledge, there is a lot here that we can agree on. It is unfortunate that more of the amendments have not been taken on board, because gaps remain in the Bill. We are all concerned that there will not be another opportunity to look at these issues again in this detail; unfortunately, parliamentary time does not work like that, so getting it right this time is important. We could get it right today or tomorrow, or if the Lords come forward with some useful amendments—as little as I like to give credit to the unelected peers along the hall, if amendments are tabled there, I would encourage the Government to accept them and make sure that they are acknowledged.

SNP Members have tabled a number of amendments, where we seek to create a unique identifier for directors; to put a limit on the number of directorships an individual can hold; to prevent directors in breach of their duties from taking public funds; and to prevent the practice of phoenixing, which causes so much harm to many of our constituents. It is not often talked about in the same bracket as economic crime generally, but phoenixing causes huge distress. My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) will certainly return to this point in his remarks later.

Government new clause 8, on persistent breaches of companies legislation and the disqualification of company directors, is very important, because we have seen numerous reports in the press of people who repeatedly breach the law. There are huge issues of enforcement, and I intend to address those too. The Bill should include consequences for people who breach the rules.

I wonder what the House and the Minister think about a compliance case raised earlier today by Tortoise. It mentioned Balshore Investments Ltd Gibraltar, which in 2017 listed itself at Companies House as a person of significant control of a different company, Crowd2Fund. Its name was then removed in 2020, and that removal was backdated to 2016. In 2022 two directors, named on the register as Nadjat Al Zahawi and Hareth Nadhim Al Zahawi, were named as PSCs of Crowd2Fund.

Graham Barrow has told Tortoise that the retrospective changing of directors means that Balshore’s filings

“leave a huge gap of six years when, despite Balshore owning 40 per cent of Crowd2Fund, no declaration of the underlying owners of Balshore has been made, as required by UK law”.

This is a very interesting and topical case. I wonder what the consequences might be for, and what might befall, those who fail to comply with company law in this way under the new legislation.

Government new clause 15 is important in ensuring that this House is accountable on the measures within the Bill. I think that is fine as far as it goes, but Labour’s new clause 16 would go much further. It is important that the Minister looks at these measures and asks, “What does the House need to know?” Yes, there will be reports, but there is a good deal more detail in new clause 16, and I think it is important to look at that and think, “Actually, this is what the House might find useful and interesting to look at as regards the effectiveness of the Bill.”

[Liam Byrne]

Does the hon. Member agree that waivers for warlords is exactly the kind of information that the House would be interested in, to understand how effectively we are prosecuting economic crime and how well our sanctions are actually biting?

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Liam Byrne and Alison Thewliss

Thursday 27th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Liam Byrne]

Q That is very useful. Finally, the folks from Lloyds bank, and others, described how easy it is to move money through a network of banks and then consolidate it into a final bank, from which bad people may take their money out. We were worried about the way in which proxies in particular could be used by bad people to help with this kind of mechanism. In the Bill, we have a definition of “person with significant control”, which is someone with about 25%. Is that too high?

Angela Foyle: It is based on the Financial Action Task Force standards on beneficial ownership, which looks to people who own 25% or more, in some cases, or more than 25% in others. It is one of those challenging issues because, in relation to things such as proxies, often it is not the about the levels that a person owns, it is the fact that x purports to be the person who holds it, when actually they actually do so on behalf on y, which can be very difficult to track through.

Many people look below 25% in any event just to make sure. Particularly with sanctions, they will have a look there. But 25% is a global norm and changing it might cause other challenges. This is the question: are you satisfied that you understand who the people that you are dealing with are, and who is behind them, at all times? It is not necessarily a question of whether it should be 20%, 5% or 25%. It is a hard one for me to answer because I work with 25%, but I will generally have a good look around to see what else there is.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Q In your evidence to the Committee, you said that you wanted Ministers to amend the legislation to ensure that accountancy firms are in the scope for indirect information-sharing provisions. Will you tell us a bit more about why that is important?

Mike Miller: Indirect information provision essentially relates to a third-party database which would allow the easier sharing of information between financial firms. The ones that are already mentioned include banks, crypto exchanges and various different entities that could be privy to malicious financial movements, essentially. The accountancy sector has not been included in that, so for the purposes of a lot of the work that we are doing about the open sharing of information with law enforcement, between bodies, between other firms, it would be helpful for the streamlined moving of information. It would certainly help accountancy firms to identify more quickly, and thus reduce the likelihood of, any bad transactions taking place. An accountancy firm could avoid getting embroiled in things it does not wish to get embroiled in if it had pre-emptive access to any intelligence—that may have been discovered by a bank, for example, looking in more detail at specific financial transactions than accountancy firms tend to—that indicated that it should not be doing business with particular entities.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Liam Byrne and Alison Thewliss

Committee stage
Thursday 27th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Liam Byrne]

Q That is very useful. Finally, the folks from Lloyds bank, and others, described how easy it is to move money through a network of banks and then consolidate it into a final bank, from which bad people may take their money out. We were worried about the way in which proxies in particular could be used by bad people to help with this kind of mechanism. In the Bill, we have a definition of “person with significant control”, which is someone with about 25%. Is that too high?

Angela Foyle: It is based on the Financial Action Task Force standards on beneficial ownership, which looks to people who own 25% or more, in some cases, or more than 25% in others. It is one of those challenging issues because, in relation to things such as proxies, often it is not the about the levels that a person owns, it is the fact that x purports to be the person who holds it, when actually they actually do so on behalf on y, which can be very difficult to track through.

Many people look below 25% in any event just to make sure. Particularly with sanctions, they will have a look there. But 25% is a global norm and changing it might cause other challenges. This is the question: are you satisfied that you understand who the people that you are dealing with are, and who is behind them, at all times? It is not necessarily a question of whether it should be 20%, 5% or 25%. It is a hard one for me to answer because I work with 25%, but I will generally have a good look around to see what else there is.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Q In your evidence to the Committee, you said that you wanted Ministers to amend the legislation to ensure that accountancy firms are in the scope for indirect information-sharing provisions. Will you tell us a bit more about why that is important?

Mike Miller: Indirect information provision essentially relates to a third-party database which would allow the easier sharing of information between financial firms. The ones that are already mentioned include banks, crypto exchanges and various different entities that could be privy to malicious financial movements, essentially. The accountancy sector has not been included in that, so for the purposes of a lot of the work that we are doing about the open sharing of information with law enforcement, between bodies, between other firms, it would be helpful for the streamlined moving of information. It would certainly help accountancy firms to identify more quickly, and thus reduce the likelihood of, any bad transactions taking place. An accountancy firm could avoid getting embroiled in things it does not wish to get embroiled in if it had pre-emptive access to any intelligence—that may have been discovered by a bank, for example, looking in more detail at specific financial transactions than accountancy firms tend to—that indicated that it should not be doing business with particular entities.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Liam Byrne and Alison Thewliss

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Alison Thewliss]

Q In the sense that the trust and company service providers and other supervisors are not doing their job properly, so that would stop those who are registering directly.

Thomas Mayne: It is an option.

[Liam Byrne]

Q One of the ironies of this Bill is that it is called the corporate transparency Bill, but it says very little about two kinds of people who maximise corporate transparency. One is whistleblowers and the other is journalists, or indeed writers of think-tank reports. That is a shame, because we have courts in this country that are being systematically used by rich individuals to silence journalists and sometimes think-tanks. I can speak under privilege in this hearing, so I can talk about Dmitry Leus forcing Chatham House to amend one of its reports, and I can talk about Chatham House agreeing to that because it did not want to confront the legal bills entailed in going to court with Mr Leus. If we are serious about corporate transparency, should we not be introducing anti-SLAPP measures that would enable a judge to throw out a case that was transparently focused on trying to stop people revealing the truth?

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Liam Byrne and Alison Thewliss

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Alison Thewliss]

Q I want to ask about Scottish limited partnerships, particularly given their involvement in sanctions busting and various other things. Do you share my concern that they can exist in the Companies House register in a sort of zombie form and can be reanimated? Is there more that the Bill could do about that? If the use of SLPs is being tightened up, if you were looking to abuse corporate structures where would you go next?

Jonathan Hall: I do not want to say. The key thing is that I am not a Scottish lawyer, and I am not going to try and opine on whether there is a legitimate use of them. The key thing is basic enforcement. You made the point that there are zombie companies. Well, someone in Companies House needs to follow these things up. I am sure they will, but the resourcing of Companies House is where I would put my money.

[Liam Byrne]

Q We have just heard some very powerful evidence about the relationship between organised crime groups operating in this sphere of crime, and state threats. Have you any other observations about the relationship between economic crime and national security threats as we face them today? Is that a serious problem that we need to be worried about?

Jonathan Hall: It is a serious problem. I would say that the reason we have not faced the wave of mass casualty terrorist attacks in the UK, in contrast to America, is the lack of readily available firearms. That is the key thing. It is why the growth of the extreme right wing and all these ideologies that inspire mass killings, the obsession with Columbine and so on, have not resulted in mass shootings. From a national security perspective, the real concern is the alignment—if it happens—between terrorist organisations and those in organised crime, who do have the capacity to source firearms. That is a really important point.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Liam Byrne and Alison Thewliss

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Alison Thewliss]

Q In the sense that the trust and company service providers and other supervisors are not doing their job properly, so that would stop those who are registering directly.

Thomas Mayne: It is an option.

[Liam Byrne]

Q One of the ironies of this Bill is that it is called the corporate transparency Bill, but it says very little about two kinds of people who maximise corporate transparency. One is whistleblowers and the other is journalists, or indeed writers of think-tank reports. That is a shame, because we have courts in this country that are being systematically used by rich individuals to silence journalists and sometimes think-tanks. I can speak under privilege in this hearing, so I can talk about Dmitry Leus forcing Chatham House to amend one of its reports, and I can talk about Chatham House agreeing to that because it did not want to confront the legal bills entailed in going to court with Mr Leus. If we are serious about corporate transparency, should we not be introducing anti-SLAPP measures that would enable a judge to throw out a case that was transparently focused on trying to stop people revealing the truth?

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Debate between Liam Byrne and Alison Thewliss

2nd reading
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

That is a fair point, and I absolutely agree. I will speak in the sanctions part of my speech about the fact that the Government do not know who has what in order to sanction them because the Companies House register is such nonsense, and we do not have a good enough understanding of who actually owns property in this country right now.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady share my concern that there are still 11,000 companies at Companies House that do not have a person of significant control registered, yet there have been only 119 prosecutions? Surely we have to transform the regulatory power of Companies House to get rid of this nonsense.

[Alison Thewliss]

I absolutely agree. I was going to speak about Scottish limited partnerships later but will jump forward to that bit of my speech now, because it ties in nicely with the point the right hon. Member makes.

The House will have heard me speak on numerous occasions about SLPs, which have the distinction of being able to hold assets—property, yachts or whatever else—as a company. They have been used in the past as a means of funnelling money out of Ukraine as well other countries. OpenDemocracy reported last year that it had found €35.9 million in an SLP account which had been stolen from people in Ukraine through a fraud; Remini Consulting was the company involved in that. As the right hon. Member pointed out, the key to tracing those involved in such frauds is the persons of significant control.

SLPs have been obliged to have a person of significant control for several years now; that is a reform the SNP pushed for and the Government said they were going to introduce. Sure enough, the numbers of SLPs on the Companies House register decreased, and the number of people who were not registering as persons of significant control also decreased, but according to the most recent figures 203 companies are still SLPs with no person of significant control registered. That is just not right, and that is not being pursued either. Of all the thousands of SLPs that have existed and that still exist, only one has been issued with a fine for not having a person of significant control, and that fine was £210. That is absolutely pathetic, and it highlights that this Government are not even bothering to enforce the rules they have.

The Government are proposing in this economic crime Bill to fine companies that do not comply, but they are not fining companies that do not comply right now. That is not just about not enforcing the rules; it is money that is walking out of the Treasury—money they could have had to spend on services and do other things. They are not enforcing the rules, and they are not fining the companies that are not playing by the rules—they are not striking them off the register; they are not doing anything to make sure the rules are complied with.

This Bill does not go far enough to address that. The fines suggested are £2,500 a day, which is nothing to many of the companies who are shifting billions of pounds through shell companies. That is just the cost of doing business; it is nothing to the oligarchs with deep pockets stuffed full of Putin’s money, and the Government should be doing a hell of a lot more about that. At this moment, welcome as this Bill is, they are not doing anything to address that imbalance.