MLR1PP8100 - Penalties Guidance: The simplified framework for registration breaches
Because failing to register a business with us at the correct time or failing to update their registration details will not itself automatically expose anything to money laundering activity, a simplified penalty framework for registration breaches has been adopted.
If we suspect that a business has not registered because they are involved directly or are colluding with money laundering, a criminal investigation will be considered. See MLR1PP12160
Even when there is no suspicion of money laundering registration breaches are likely to indicate that there are also weaknesses in a businesses anti-money laundering controls and other regulatory breaches may have also occurred. When more significant breaches are identified at a subsequent Compliance Visit any penalty for these breaches will be calculated separately and in addition to any registration penalties. The level of these penalties will take the impact of these breaches into consideration.
Like all other breaches we will normally issue at least one warning letter to businesses before we issue a penalty.
Businesses that were previously on the 2003 register will have been sent several warnings about the consequences of trading unsupervised if they fail to re-register. If they ignore these warnings and trade unsupervised we normally will issue a penalty without any further warning letters. Significant reductions will still be given when an unprompted full disclosure is made.
If a new business fails to register before it starts to trade and makes a full unprompted disclosure they will be sent a pre penalty letter advising the business of our intention to issue a penalty based on the minimum fixed fee and any unpaid fees. This will depend however on whether the business genuinely did not realise they should have been registered with us.
If we receive a late registration or re-registration following a reminder from us or a publicity campaign, we will treat this as a prompted disclosure.
