Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Jackie Doyle-Price

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

Q It is partly about powers and laws. It is partly about resource, but fundamentally it is about the behaviour of the regulators. Mr Browder, some of the things you alluded to earlier would be about informing those behaviours. Coming back to the extent of laundered money that goes through the City of London, to what extent do we need to make sure that we are driving behavioural change within the institutions through which these monies are being routed?

Bill Browder: People are very simple: they operate on the basis of rewards and punishments. There are big rewards for people in the City of London to launder money. Banks make money off transactions and accounts and so on. Company formation agencies make money off selling directors and forming companies. Lawyers make money setting up these structures. There is no consequence if they are involved in in dirty business—none. Nobody faces any consequence.

What we have just seen at Companies House is remarkable: thousands of companies being registered for no commercial purpose other than to launder money. These companies then set up foreign bank accounts. We know who the directors are. Some of the directors are UK citizens. The company formation agencies are UK company formation agencies. We report it to the police, and nothing happens. If nothing is going to happen, then you are not going to change the culture.

America has the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Most American corporate executives do not want to be prosecuted and therefore do not make bribes abroad. Austria does not, and so they do. We are in a situation where there is no consequence for doing any of this type of stuff. It does not matter what is written in this law; it does not matter what was written in the previous law. There was a great law passed called the unexplained wealth order. It is a beautiful law, which solved a huge problem, which is not having to get evidence from the bad guys in the kleptocrat countries, and just using the evidence that we have here. We have used it in four or five cases, and most of the cases have actually been on behalf of dictators going after their enemies. We have a total failure of law enforcement. It probably should be studied as a separate issue: why is law enforcement not doing its job? Why is it failing?

You can write as many great laws as you want—there is some good stuff in this law, and good stuff in the previous laws—but if no one is going to enforce it, then you are never going to change the risk-reward and people are going to carry on doing stuff. All this will continue, and I will sit here 10 years from now making the same allegations about how this is a centre of money laundering.

Oliver Bullough: I would like to agree with everything Bill just said. People are more or less rational: they act according to their incentives. We can try and change the culture in the City of London as much as we like but, essentially, if there is no prospect of being arrested, prosecuted and jailed, or at the very least given a large fine, for committing these kinds of crimes, then someone will always be available to commit them because the reward will be sufficiently large and there will be no downside.

I gave a talk to a school a couple of years ago. One of the kids had been sitting silently throughout, and he put his hand up and asked me at the end, “Yeah, Mister, if you know all this about money laundering, why don’t you just go and do it?” I still do not really know the answer to that question, because there is no real reason not to do it. It is a gimme of a crime. You are 99.9% likely to get away with it.

What is particularly frustrating is that when we have prosecuted fraud and put resources into prosecuting fraud, it not only pays for itself, but is a huge profit centre. We saw that from Lord Agnew, who ran a small anti-fraud office from the Cabinet Office during the covid pandemic. He had a small anti-fraud budget that returned tenfold the amount of money that was paid. It is a complete no-brainer to go after this money and these crimes. We would be benefiting the country in every way.

I agree with Bill; it is very frustrating to hear talk about changing culture, when what we really need to do is to change people’s incentives. The way to do that is to enforce the laws that we have.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Q Mr Browder and Mr Bullough, thank you very much for coming. We have spoken about these issues at the Foreign Affairs Committee, which I used to chair. In the past, we have consistently covered the need for transparency. I hope you will agree that the Bill demonstrates a desire to be much more transparent. I hope you will also agree that many of the anti-money laundering provisions go much of the distance towards addressing the concerns we have raised in the past.

We will be listening for further ideas in the future, but do you agree that the Bill at least sets out the first steps to where we really do need to be going to make sure that the crimes begin to be prosecuted? Just to answer your question, Oliver, the reason you do not launder money is that you are and remain a person of integrity; sadly, you are not very rich for it, but there you go. That is the price.

Bill Browder: I have never had any trouble with the laws as they are written here. We probably do not even need this. It is a great law—congratulations; I applaud you on putting it together. It is 252 pages of mind-numbing stuff—

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Jackie Doyle-Price

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

Q It is partly about powers and laws. It is partly about resource, but fundamentally it is about the behaviour of the regulators. Mr Browder, some of the things you alluded to earlier would be about informing those behaviours. Coming back to the extent of laundered money that goes through the City of London, to what extent do we need to make sure that we are driving behavioural change within the institutions through which these monies are being routed?

Bill Browder: People are very simple: they operate on the basis of rewards and punishments. There are big rewards for people in the City of London to launder money. Banks make money off transactions and accounts and so on. Company formation agencies make money off selling directors and forming companies. Lawyers make money setting up these structures. There is no consequence if they are involved in in dirty business—none. Nobody faces any consequence.

What we have just seen at Companies House is remarkable: thousands of companies being registered for no commercial purpose other than to launder money. These companies then set up foreign bank accounts. We know who the directors are. Some of the directors are UK citizens. The company formation agencies are UK company formation agencies. We report it to the police, and nothing happens. If nothing is going to happen, then you are not going to change the culture.

America has the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Most American corporate executives do not want to be prosecuted and therefore do not make bribes abroad. Austria does not, and so they do. We are in a situation where there is no consequence for doing any of this type of stuff. It does not matter what is written in this law; it does not matter what was written in the previous law. There was a great law passed called the unexplained wealth order. It is a beautiful law, which solved a huge problem, which is not having to get evidence from the bad guys in the kleptocrat countries, and just using the evidence that we have here. We have used it in four or five cases, and most of the cases have actually been on behalf of dictators going after their enemies. We have a total failure of law enforcement. It probably should be studied as a separate issue: why is law enforcement not doing its job? Why is it failing?

You can write as many great laws as you want—there is some good stuff in this law, and good stuff in the previous laws—but if no one is going to enforce it, then you are never going to change the risk-reward and people are going to carry on doing stuff. All this will continue, and I will sit here 10 years from now making the same allegations about how this is a centre of money laundering.

Oliver Bullough: I would like to agree with everything Bill just said. People are more or less rational: they act according to their incentives. We can try and change the culture in the City of London as much as we like but, essentially, if there is no prospect of being arrested, prosecuted and jailed, or at the very least given a large fine, for committing these kinds of crimes, then someone will always be available to commit them because the reward will be sufficiently large and there will be no downside.

I gave a talk to a school a couple of years ago. One of the kids had been sitting silently throughout, and he put his hand up and asked me at the end, “Yeah, Mister, if you know all this about money laundering, why don’t you just go and do it?” I still do not really know the answer to that question, because there is no real reason not to do it. It is a gimme of a crime. You are 99.9% likely to get away with it.

What is particularly frustrating is that when we have prosecuted fraud and put resources into prosecuting fraud, it not only pays for itself, but is a huge profit centre. We saw that from Lord Agnew, who ran a small anti-fraud office from the Cabinet Office during the covid pandemic. He had a small anti-fraud budget that returned tenfold the amount of money that was paid. It is a complete no-brainer to go after this money and these crimes. We would be benefiting the country in every way.

I agree with Bill; it is very frustrating to hear talk about changing culture, when what we really need to do is to change people’s incentives. The way to do that is to enforce the laws that we have.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Q Mr Browder and Mr Bullough, thank you very much for coming. We have spoken about these issues at the Foreign Affairs Committee, which I used to chair. In the past, we have consistently covered the need for transparency. I hope you will agree that the Bill demonstrates a desire to be much more transparent. I hope you will also agree that many of the anti-money laundering provisions go much of the distance towards addressing the concerns we have raised in the past.

We will be listening for further ideas in the future, but do you agree that the Bill at least sets out the first steps to where we really do need to be going to make sure that the crimes begin to be prosecuted? Just to answer your question, Oliver, the reason you do not launder money is that you are and remain a person of integrity; sadly, you are not very rich for it, but there you go. That is the price.

Bill Browder: I have never had any trouble with the laws as they are written here. We probably do not even need this. It is a great law—congratulations; I applaud you on putting it together. It is 252 pages of mind-numbing stuff—