Political unrest in the Ukraine is likely to pose corruption risks for U.K. banks, warns Transparency International, a global anti-corruption coalition. It is urging comprehensive sanctions and anti-money laundering efforts in the U.K. and financial centers around the world.
“Your government has invested in learning from the experience of slow international response to freezing corrupt assets in wake of the Arab Spring,” the group wrote in a Feb. 21 letter to U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. “Those lessons should now be applied to the situation in the Ukraine. [The government] should, without delay, take a proactive role to remind all risk sectors, and their relevant regulators, of their obligations to examine money laundering risks related to members and associates of the current Ukrainian regime.”
