Crime Bill warning

The Law Society has slammed the draft Proceeds of Crime Bill for potentially hobbling solicitors' activities and introducing Draconian procedures for recovering money.The Bill provides for a new agency to recover property from suspected criminals and short-cut tax investigations, and places a greater burden on advisers - including solicitors and accountants - to consider whether they are inadvertently concealing their clients' criminal proceeds.Money laundering proposals which extend the liability of third parties to the money laundering of their clients as soon as an offence happens, regardless of whether they intended to assist or not, 'may cause significant difficulties for lawyers', the Law Society's strongly worded official response said.Louise Delahunty, chairwoman of the Society's money laundering task force, who helped draft the response, said: 'We understand why the government wants to tighten up the legislation, but we must be sure that the legislation is clear, and enables solicitors to practise effectively.'The response said plans to by-pass traditional recovery actions in the High Court for being too slow and expensive are based on 'no evidence', and proposals for a short-cut Crown Court procedure are made with 'no discussion as to whether this is the appropriate venue'.A proposed new civil right enabling the state to recover property is based on bogus arguments, it claimed, saying: 'It might as well be argued that rules of evidence and procedure should be scrapped.'The right would breach hearsay and self-incrimination conditions, probably falling foul of the Human Rights Act, the Society argued.Jeremy Fleming