{"id":58815,"date":"2025-01-31T00:24:25","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T00:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/legal\/sfo-unexplained-wealth-orders-new-focus-for-illicit-finance-criminal-law-blog\/"},"modified":"2025-01-31T00:24:25","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T00:24:25","slug":"sfo-unexplained-wealth-orders-new-focus-for-illicit-finance-criminal-law-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=58815","title":{"rendered":"SFO Unexplained Wealth Orders \u2013 new focus for illicit finance? | Criminal Law Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>On 17 January, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) secured its first Unexplained Wealth Order, in respect of a property believed to have been purchased with the proceeds of a \u00a3100 million fraud.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">The SFO <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/sfo-secures-first-unexplained-wealth-order-in-100m-fraud-case\" style=\"font-size: 18px;\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\"> that the property, valued at around \u00a31.5 million, is owned by Claire Schools, the ex-wife of convicted solicitor Timothy Schools, who was sentenced in 2022 to 14 years in prison for fraud.\u00a0The order obliges Ms Schools to produce information within 28 days about how she acquired the property, and while she is still entitled to sell the property she is prohibited from transferring or otherwise using the proceeds of such sale.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Given the rarity of UWOs (only 11 have been obtained since the measure was introduced in 2017), it is interesting that the SFO has \u2013 finally \u2013 decided to exercise its entitlement to seek a UWO rather than to rely on the more traditional tools of restraint pre-conviction and confiscation post-conviction. However, the particulars of this case mean that one should not assume that it heralds a significant policy shift. Ms Schools was unrepresented and the value of the property is relatively low (in the context of other targets of UWOs), so it remains to be seen whether the SFO will have the appetite to go after bigger fish where it may face better-resourced opposition.<\/p>\n<p>Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs) were introduced to bolster the Proceeds of Crime regime and \u201ctackle illicit finance\u201d by extending the powers of law enforcement agencies to disrupt offending and to seize assets suspected of representing criminal property. Unveiled with a fanfare as a vital new weapon to target the wealth of corrupt overseas politicians and the properties of oligarchs [see our previous <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kingsleynapley.co.uk\/insights\/blogs\/criminal-law-blog\/unexplained-wealth-orders\">blogs<\/a>], in fact UWOs have not been widely adopted. In part, surely, because of an early high-profile \u2013 and expensive &#8211; defeat for the NCA, although even since the agency-friendly cap on potential costs in 2022 (under The\u00a0Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022), the number of UWOs sought has remained small.<\/p>\n<p>In practice UWOs can be applied to any asset over \u00a350,000 where there are reasonable grounds for suspecting dirty money is involved. Accountants, tax advisers and private wealth managers therefore need to understand how UWOs work and why their clients, innocent or otherwise, might be at risk.\u00a0 The wide range of parties that can be targeted by UWOs, the reverse burden of proof that applies and the pressure on UK authorities to be seen to do more to stamp out suspected dirty money, means that many people may find themselves fighting to retain their assets.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"contentddtoggle\" style=\"background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);\">Further information<\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);\">If you have any questions regarding this blog, please contact <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kingsleynapley.co.uk\/our-people\/ed-smyth\" target=\"_blank\">Ed Smyth<\/a>\u00a0in our\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kingsleynapley.co.uk\/our-people?category=988\" style=\"font-size: 18px;\" target=\"_blank\">Criminal<\/a>\u00a0team.\u00a0 For more information, visit our Unexplained Wealth Orders <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kingsleynapley.co.uk\/services\/department\/criminal-litigation\/proceeds-of-crime-and-money-laundering\/unexplained-wealth-orders\" target=\"_blank\">page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"contentddtogglestop\" style=\"font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);\">\u00a0<\/h2>\n<h2 class=\"contentddtoggle\" style=\"background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);\">About the author<\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);\">Ed represents individuals and corporates across the full spectrum of criminal and quasi-criminal matters.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"contentddtogglestop\" style=\"font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);\">\u00a0<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 17 January, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) secured its first Unexplained Wealth Order, in respect of a property believed to have been purchased with the proceeds of a \u00a3100 million fraud. The SFO reported that the property, valued at around \u00a31.5 million, is owned by Claire Schools, the ex-wife of convicted solicitor Timothy Schools, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[3767,14207,10924,4519,32159,12685,26122,31966,33053,7351],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-58815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal","tag-blog","tag-criminal","tag-finance","tag-focus","tag-illicit","tag-law","tag-orders","tag-sfo","tag-unexplained","tag-wealth"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SFO Unexplained Wealth Orders \u2013 new focus for illicit finance? | Criminal Law Blog - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=58815\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SFO Unexplained Wealth Orders \u2013 new focus for illicit finance? | Criminal Law Blog - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On 17 January, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) secured its first Unexplained Wealth Order, in respect of a property believed to have been purchased with the proceeds of a \u00a3100 million fraud. 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