JFor years the new money laundering law has been slowly being prepared – now, under the impact of the bombings of Ukrainian cities and mounting public pressure, the conservative government is galloping (and hastily tightening) it through parliament. As early as the end of the week, Queen Elizabeth II could put the “law on white-collar crime” into force. According to Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, it will “further tighten the noose around Putin’s regime”. Critics, on the other hand, complain that it still leaves loopholes.
The aim of the tripartite law is to take more effective action against questionable investors, especially those of Russian provenance. In the first part, a “register for overseas entities” will be created, which should show which private individuals are behind the ownership of real estate. The ownership structure – according to Transparency International, Russians are said to have invested more than 1.8 billion euros in the London real estate market alone – are often artfully concealed, especially with companies based in foreign tax havens whose corporate structures are difficult to understand. Companies that do not provide any information about the true beneficiaries are now threatened with sales restrictions, and violators are threatened with five years in prison.