There's been a lot of discussion about what to do about Russia following the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, and potential financial sanctions and legislative change. One thing we've looked at a lot at @Bellingcat is Scottish Limited Partnerships 1/
Last Summer @bellingcat published a report with @TransparencyUK on Scottish Limited Partnerships, and how they're used and abused. 2/ bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
Scottish Limited Partnerships have been around for 100 years, and were intended to help people like Scottish tenant farmers. In the last several years they've instead been used by foreign companies and individuals to hide who owns companies, key for money laundering operations 3/
In August last year @Bellingcat reported on the government's transparency efforts around UK companies, and how they're revealing who owns SLPs. Our research showed it's definitely not Scottish farmers who own them. 4/
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
Persons of Significant Control (PSCs) were meant to be declared to the government, and those who failed to do so faced a £500 a day fine. We examined documents in Companies House and found there were £127 million of potential fines to be collected 5/
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
Following our research @margarethodge asked the government how much of the £127 million had been collected. The government responded they had collected £0. Effectively the new legislation had no enforcement mechanism 6/
Fixing SLPs will not lose the government tax income, and will remove a key cog in the machinery of corruption that allows money laundering and other financial malfeasance to take place with the help of the UK. This is an easy fix that's not just about Russia 7/
You can read the latest on our investigations into Scottish Limited Partnerships here. Thanks to @OSFJournalism for funding our financial investigation work. bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
