The Economic Crime (Anti-Money Laundering) Levy (Amendment) Regulations 2023

The new Economic Crime (Anti-Money Laundering) Levy (Amendment) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/369) was published on legislation.gov.uk, the official platform for publicizing legal texts in UK. The regulations make amendments to the Economic Crime (Anti-Money Laundering) Levy Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/269), which itself makes provisions for the assessment, payment, collection, and recovery of the economic crime (anti-money laundering) levy, a levy that will be used to fund the fight against economic crime in accordance with the Finance Act 2022 and that will be imposed on all anti-money laundering regulated businesses – including banks, building societies, investment firms, and others.
The new 2023 regulations now implement new and modify existing provisions primarily for the purpose of reflecting – if already specified – the appeal process to such levy by affected entities and correspondingly amending the collection process to permit the re-issuance of new levy notifications following a re-assessment. Among other things, the regulations
– stipulate that any levy assessment and notifications of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) may be „amended, replaced or withdrawn“;
– stipulate that any levy assessment of the Gambling Commission or GC (the second authority responsible for the collection of the levy) may be recalculated following an initial assessment;
– define the collection process of the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the third authority responsible for the collection of the levy, following a re-assessment of a levy;
– define the appeals process for entities subject to the payment of levies to the HMRC;
– specify how the levy is to be treated before an insolvency takes place (debt of the entity) and how it is to be treated after an insolvency procedure has been initiated (expense of the insolvency);
– set out the obligation of affected entities to provide all necessary information to the FCA and the GC to permit the assessment of the levy;
– set out the obligation of affected entities to keep on record any such information; and
– specify enforcement rules for either of the authorities so as to punish entities that are non-compliant with the new levy provisions.