Anti-Money Laundering and Professional Service Providers: Conference report

Recent years have seen an increased global focus on the role of professional service providers – notably lawyers and accountants – as ‘enablers’ of financial crime, including money laundering, sanctions evasion and corruption. While this behaviour may be limited to a small proportion of the population of the professional services sector, lawyers and accountants have an important role to play as gatekeepers of the financial system. These professions form the ‘first line of defence’ in identifying and reporting suspicious activity, and need to have the information, resources and skills to be able to do this.

Between April and June 2024, the Centre for Finance and Security at RUSI organised three workshops exploring the role of anti-money laundering regulation, supervision and enforcement activity in preventing, detecting punishing so-called ‘enabling’ behaviour and incentivising good practices in the UK and the EU. This conference report summarises the discussions.