Tag Archives: Alun Milford

Unexplained Wealth Orders, Explained: The UK Regime and Considerations for the United States (Part II of II)

by Alun Milford and Alicyn Cooley

In Part One of this article, we described the history of Unexplained Wealth Orders (“UWOs”) in England and Wales, and their use by UK authorities to date. As litigation challenging UWOs already has shown, respondents against whom such orders are entered face a binding precedent to the contrary should they seek to persuade a court that a UWO violates their or their spouse’s privilege against self-incrimination. Although the self-incrimination concern presented by UWOs is just one of many reasons that this investigative tool is unlikely to be adopted in the United States, as we detail below, the UWO regime in the United Kingdom presents important considerations—and, potentially, applications—for U.S. authorities. At the same time, the U.S. example of targeted increases in transparency around real estate transactions might give the UK authorities food for thought.

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Unexplained Wealth Orders, Explained: The UK Regime and Considerations for the United States

by Alun Milford and Alicyn Cooley

Two and a half years after their introduction in the United Kingdom, unexplained wealth orders (“UWOs”) are garnering more international attention than ever. Litigation surrounding the first UWOs has progressed in English and Welsh courts, clarifying how the law will be applied there and revealing how the authorities have so far sought to use them. In this two-part article, we review the trajectory of UWOs in the United Kingdom, examine what it shows about the English and Welsh approach to self-incrimination issues raised by UWOs, and compare the UWO system to the current civil forfeiture regime in the United States.

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Regulating the Use of Data in the United Kingdom’s Financial Sector

by Alun Milford

It is just over a year since the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation came into force. It strengthened Europe’s already highly evolved legal framework for the protection of personal data and provided for much heavier penalties for breaches of those protections than had hitherto been available. For example, under the old law the maximum penalty the United Kingdom’s regulator could impose for a data protection breach was £500,000 whereas under the new law the maximum penalty throughout Europe is the higher of 20,000,000 euros or 4% of the firm’s annual worldwide turnover in the preceding financial year. The prospect of penalties on this scale has concentrated the minds of businesses with European operations, whether headquartered there or not. 

For firms in the United Kingdom’s regulated financial sector a particular concern was the prospect of having to comply with two distinct regulatory frameworks – one for the conduct of business and the other for the protection of personal data – policed by two distinct regulators – the Financial Conduct Authority and the Information Commissioner’s Office – where both regulators now had the power to impose very significant sanctions for the same conduct. In this blog I consider the functions of the respective regulators, the areas of overlap or common interest in their work and the way in which the regulators have indicated they will approach those areas of common interest. Continue reading