UK Finance and other financial services sector associations have produced the following financial sector industry guidance on the corporate criminal offences within the Criminal Finances Act 2017, which came into force on 30^th September 2017. The Chancellor approved this guidance on 8^th January 2018 pursuant to his power under section 47(7) of the Criminal Finances Act 2017.

This document contains formal guidance and also examples, which are included in this document only to assist with the illustration and interpretation of certain parts of the guidance. The examples are not part of the guidance and have not been approved by the Chancellor, but have been discussed with HMRC.

The Criminal Finances Act 2017 creates two new criminal offences committed when a relevant body fails to prevent the criminal facilitation of tax evasion by its associated persons. In the event of a tax evasion facilitation offence taking place, it is a defence for a relevant body to show that either reasonable prevention procedures were in place to prevent the facilitation by the associated person or that it was not reasonable to expect such procedures to be in place at the time the facilitation offence was committed.

The Act does not prescribe reasonable prevention procedures that must be put in place but it does require the publication of government guidance and allows the Chancellor to approve guidance prepared and published by another person on the same topic.