7. Make up your own sentences using the words and word combinations given below.

To become more risk-averse, to put pressure on tax departments, to face disclosure requirements, the risk of increased penalties, to cause havoc to smb’s reputation, reduced corporate profitability, to shelter profits from tax, external contributors, to align the tax strategy with other aspects of business.

8. You are a department manager for a major consumer products firm. Each year your supervisor asks that you prepare a short-term financial forecast and operating budget for the coming fiscal year. Your department’s appropriations are determined and funds allocated from the forecast and budget you present. Preliminary analysis indicates that your department could survive the next year’s operations with exactly the same budget that was allocated to you last year. The problem is, you wonder if you don’t request additional funds for this year, will the firm expect you to keep your departmental costs down each and every year? You realise your supervisor would certainly approve a 10 percent increase in your budget appropriations just on the trust he has in you. You might even be able to get a 15 percent increase with little questioning of actual need. What would you do? What could be the result of your decision?

9. Can you see the link between accounting and finance? They are mutually supportive functions in a firm. A firm cannot get along without accounting but neither can it prosper without short- and long-term financing, managing its funds well, minimising its taxes, and investing its funds properly. In fact, finance is so important to a firm that some finance executives go on to be presidents of firms. What would be the advantages and disadvantages of a president with a finance background versus a marketing background? Is there a danger of being too concerned with cost-cutting, budgeting, and controlling funds?

   ECONOMIC ISSUE: FINANCIAL CRIMES

FINANCIAL TIMES NOVEMBER 1 2004

Caught in a legal trap of suspicious minds

Fear of falling foul of anti-money laundering laws is causing many UK lawyers to compromise client confidentiality, says Bob Sherwood

In the climate of aggressive policing of anti-money laundering provisions, it is not often that you hear a law enforcer tell lawyers to make fewer reports on their clients.

But at the recent annual conference of the Law Society, which regulates 116,000 solicitors in England and Wales, lawyers were warned that they were breaching client confidentiality with too many unnecessary disclosures.

The warning illustrates the widespread confusion into which recent money laundering regulations have plunged many UK lawyers.

The new anti-money laundering regime was ushered in by the 2002 Proceeds of Crime Act and 2003 money laundering regulations. As a result, solicitors and advo­cates, along with accoun­tants and others in financial institutions, have a legal obligation to disclose any suspicions of criminal activity or the proceeds of crimes, however minor. There is no de minimis provision in the act, which means lawyers must disclose even minor tax evasions no matter how paltry the sums involved.

Lawyers must seek permission from the National Criminal Intelligence Service if they wish to continue advising their client and must not “tip off” the client that a suspicious activity report has been made.

Fiona Nicolson, principal intelligence officer at NCIS, said some solicitors were submitting reports on their clients in a misguided attempt to protect themselves even though they had no reasonable suspicions of criminal activity. The reports were often along the lines of “I really don’t think there’s anything wrong here but I thought I’d mention it anyway,” says Ms Nicolson. Other solicitors have sent entire case files to NCIS in clear breach of the principles of legal privilege and client confidentiality – the files inevitably contain information that the authorities have no right to access.

Judging by the questions asked by solicitors at the conference, the anti-money laundering regime is far from widely understood, even by the professionals. One conveyancer told the conference, to much laughter, of a complicated house purchase for a client in which the other party had informed him that the sale had been partly paid for by the transfer of a property in Afghanistan to the seller’s father. Should he be suspicious, he asked? Yes, the panel answered.

At the same conference, Edward Nally, Law Society president, used his keynote address to pledge to back any legal test case over the proportionality of the regulations, which were causing “mayhem” for solicitors.

He called for the government to set a threshold for the value of criminal proceeds, so that solicitors would not be forced to inform on their clients for minor misdemeanours.

As framed, he said, the law was affecting all lawyers from large corporate firms to small high street practices and was “interfering with normal commerce”.

Although the regulations stem from European directives, not all countries have implemented the rules in the same way, and the UK government had made the directive as tough as possible, he said.

The confusion over the rules was also made apparent at another money laundering conference in London, organised by legal publishers Sweet & Maxwell. Simon Farrell QC, a barrister specialising in fraud, explained that different countries had implemented the money laundering directive in inconsistent ways.

“For example, in Austria lawyers are permitted to inform their clients that a suspicious transaction report has been made about them while in the UK such conduct could amount to the offence ‘tipping off’ or the prejudicing of an investigation,” he said.

“In Germany, banking institutions, lawyers and accountants are required to report suspicions but there is no separate offence of failing to report.”

Difficulties over complying with the regulations are not confined to lawyers, of course. Philip Robinson, financial crime sector leader at the Financial Services Authority, the City regulator, said there was a “fear factor” among banks that was leading them to interpret the regulations too strictly. Many have increased their identity checks on new and existing customers beyond the requirements of the act –often to the annoyance of longstanding account holders who have been asked to produce passports or utility bills to prove who they are. “Too many firms see [the obligations] in regard to managing their regulatory risk rather than in terms of tackling money laundering,” he said.

On the same platform, Graham Hooper, head of the anti-money laundering strategy at Barclays Bank, warned that the tipping off offence was causing bank staff “extreme problems”. For example, he asked, if a customer’s request to withdraw ₤20,000 from a branch is refused, how does a staff member tell the customer without tipping him off about their suspicions?

Some customers have been told that the bank’s system was down, but have then gone to other branches and been able to withdraw smaller amounts. Customers can become angry and threatening when accounts are frozen or they are questioned over transactions.

The threat of “abuse or attack” is a prime concern for retail banks, for example from money laundering suspects who had been arrested outside the branch. The potential risks are also on the minds of solicitors and accountants.

Many are concerned at the prospect of being classed as an official informant or “covert human intelligence source” by law enforcement agencies investigating money laundering. There are also fears that solicitors could be identified as the original source of information about a suspect should their former clients, on whom they had made a disclosure, come to trial.

In spite of the confusions, objections and bureaucracy, most accept that the anti-money laundering regime is here to stay and they must work with it. Mr Farrell said that even though some may regard the regulations as “using a hammer to crack a nut”, in fact “a blind eye has been turned for far too long to this area”.