Law Society news
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Comment on Scottish Government consultation analysis on reforming legal complaints
The Society's President Ken Dalling comments following the publication of the analysis of the Scottish Government consultation on proposals to improve the current complaints system.
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Specialist AML guidance for Trust & Company Work and Notaries published
The Legal Sector Affinity Group has published further anti-money laundering guidance for specialist areas of legal practice, following its extensive redraft of the main UK AML guidance in January.
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Regulatory Committee update
The Society's Regulatory Committee Convener Craig Cathcart provides an update on the work of the committee in 2020 and 2021.
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Inaugural AML supervisory report and Risk Appetite statement published
In February 2021, we published our inaugural annual anti-money laundering (AML) supervisory report, highlighting the breadth and range of AML initiatives that the Law Society of Scotland has recently undertaken, along with our first supervisory AML Risk Appetite statement.
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New UK AML guidance for the legal sector
The Legal Sector Affinity Group has completed an extensive revision and redraft of the UK AML guidance for the legal sector.
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Complaints reform “a significant and positive step forward”
The Scottish Government has published a new consultation to improve the current 'complicated and cumbersome' legal complaints system.
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Wrong to target high street law firms with economic crime levy
The Law Society of Scotland has said that small, high street law firms should not be hit with an additional economic crime levy.
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Price transparency guidance to come into effect in January 2021
Guidance for Scottish solicitors on publishing pricing aims to help consumers better understand the cost of legal advice and services is due to come into effect in January 2021.
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Law Society opposes plans for economic crime levy on solicitors
The Society has opposed proposals to introduce a UK-wide anti-money laundering levy on solicitors.
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AML Roundup June 2020
It is particularly important in these difficult times, that we maintain a clear focus on our AML measures and requirements and with that in mind, we wanted to bring you a round up of AML news and events.
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AML Registration Requirements during the Covid-19 crisis
Due to the Covid-19 crisis, the Disclosure Scotland service is currently only processing applications for people working on sectors deemed vital at this time. HM Treasury are content that, on a temporary basis, firms or new sole practitioners can provide a statutory declaration that the BOOM(s) does not have a relevant criminal conviction as part of the application.
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Preventing money laundering during Covid-19
The UK Legal Sector Affinity Group has published an advisory note for legal practitioners to prevent money laundering or terrorist financing going through law firms during the Covid-19 crisis.
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Law Society responds to CMA report on legal services in Scotland
The Society responds to the Competition and Markets Authority report on legal services in Scotland
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TCSP thematic review report
The legal sector’s provision of Trust or Company services has been identified as an inherently high risk area of business and as such, the area of focus for our first thematic review - the results of which have now been published.
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New guidance aims to improve price transparency in legal services
New guidance for Scottish solicitors on publishing pricing aims to help consumers better understand the cost of legal advice and services.
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Practice Rule Changes
See our update on Practice Rule changes relating to client communications and firms' client relations managers which come into effect on 1 February 2020
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Annual frozen asset review
Every year the Treasury carries out a frozen asset review. All persons that hold or control funds or economic resources belonging to, owned, held, or controlled by a designated person are required to submit a report detailing these assets by Friday 11 October 2019.
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AML Roundup September 2019
As the UK and Scottish Governments continue to intensify focus on AML measures and scrutiny of professional body supervisors, we continue to build our capabilities in this area – both to fulfill our responsibilities as a supervisor and to support our members’ compliance. Given that context, there is a huge volume of information and materials available and we have rounded these up for our members.
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The AML Certificate period is changing
Taking learnings from last year's inaugural AML Certificate process on board, this year's process will run to a different schedule.
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Enhanced AML inspection pilot
Our Head of AML, Graham Mackenzie explains that due to a growing understanding of the inherent risks faced by legal professionals, we are enhancing our Anti-Money Laundering supervision regime.
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Unified approach to cross border AML supervision
A memorandum of understanding to make sure there is a lead regulator for AML supervision where firms have a presence both in Scotland and in England and Wales has been agreed, primarily based on the location of law firms’ registered offices.
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Cost of regulatory compliance survey
We are asking Scottish law firms to help us better understand the costs of regulatory compliance by completing a short online survey.