The UK has set out plans to tame the crypto sector and the Treasury has announced that this will be done under the existing financial services regime.

In this first edition of the International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators Bulletin (see p26), Keith Oliver and Caroline Timoney argue that despite the Treasury’s ambition to control and regulate cryptoassets, the proposed regulatory regime is arriving too late and without sufficient international support to affect the fraudsters’ paradise of cryptocurrencies.

The article includes:

– A summary of the current international norms issued by the Financial Action Task Force highlighting the ‘travel rule’ proposed to prevent the use of cryptocurrencies in money laundering and terrorist financing.
– An update on the proposed UK regulatory regime with a focus on the Financial Services and Markets Act which received Royal Asset on 29 June.
– The latest from the courts of England and Wales on the application of the current legal framework to issues involving cryptocurrencies and cryptoassets.
– A brief comparison with the current state of regulation in Europe and the US.

Keith Oliver is a founding member of the International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators and has been involved in producing this first edition of the Bulletin, which was edited by Jonathan S. Sack, partner of Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello PC.