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 them to help them comply with the requirements of the Regulations. The guidance that can be relied on for this is in MLR8 and MLR9.

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
• The gateway and criteria for criminal investigations
• The administrative action Officers must follow 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 in a linear manner. 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 warning letter or escalated sanction is more appropriate.

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