Ask Mat: We've had a positive financial crime hit. Does it still have to be reported to the FIU?

Ask Mat: We've had a positive financial crime hit. Does it still have to be reported to the FIU?

• The matter closed over a year ago, and we haven’t spoken to the client since, but today’s monitoring just produced a fresh hit.

MAT SAYS: Thank you for such an important question, which is not always addressed correctly. My understanding of your question is:

•      A screening run on our historic client bank has thrown up an adverse media hit on someone we acted for on a probate matter.

•      The file closed well over a year ago, we haven’t taken instructions since, and the only thing we know is that this person was arrested abroad for an imprisonable offence.

•      Does this still trigger a report to the FIU?

It's worth being precise about what’s old here.

• The matter is old. The relationship is old.

• The adverse media itself is not a fresh hit, produced by today’s screening run, because the firm rightly keeps closed files under ongoing monitoring rather than treating a closed matter as exempt from it.

• “We only just found out” and “we’ve known about this for ages and sat on it” are very different postures, and this scenario is the former.

• That distinction matters for the analysis below but, as it turns out, not in the direction you might expect.

Short answer:

• Yes, in principle, and the facts that feel like they should matter here (how long ago, how little contact, how long since the file closed) don’t move the analysis at all.

The provision is doing the work

• For a Schedule 2 business, the relevant obligation is Article 34D of the Proceeds of Crime (Jersey) Law 1999: failure in a financial services business to report to the FIU or a nominated officer. It applies where a person (“A”):

  • Reasonable grounds know, suspects, or has reasonable grounds for suspecting that another person is engaged in money laundering, or that property represents or has been used in criminal conduct; and

  • Course of business that information came to A in the course of carrying on a financial services business.

• Two conditions. Neither one asks about the currency of the relationship.

Why “we haven’t spoken to them in over a year” doesn’t help

• It’s a natural instinct to think a stale, arm’s-length connection should count for something. It doesn’t, for three separate reasons:

• 1. The trigger is the source of the information, not the state of the relationship.

  • If the individual remains on ongoing monitoring, which is a required AML control rather than optional housekeeping, a hit surfacing through that monitoring is information reaching you “in the course of carrying on a financial services business.”

  • A closed file under active monitoring is still within scope. The obligation was never framed around whether you’re currently acting; it’s framed around how the information reached you.

• 2. “Reasonable grounds for suspecting” doesn’t need a fuller picture.

  • You might expect that a thin, one-line arrest report with no context from your own knowledge of the person should carry less weight. It doesn’t work that way.

  • Once identity is properly verified, an arrest for an imprisonable offence can be grounded entirely on reasonable suspicion.

  • The statute doesn’t require corroboration from your own file history to reach the threshold.

• 3. There’s no elapsed-time defence built into the Law.

  • The only clock that matters is Article 34D’s “as soon as is practicable”, and that runs forward from when the information reached you, not backwards from when you last had contact.

  • A long gap in the relationship doesn’t start any limitation period on the obligation; it’s simply not a variable the statute considers.

What the suspicion is actually about

• It’s worth being precise about which limb of Article 34D(2) is in play, because it’s easy to reach for “theft equals money laundering”, which isn’t quite right.

• Article 34D(2) sets out three alternatives:

  • Suspicion that another person is engaged in money laundering;

  • That property represents proceeds of criminal conduct; or

  • That property has been, is being, or is intended to be used in criminal conduct.

• On a bare arrest report with no property identified through your own files, it’s the first limb doing the work, and it gets there via the self-laundering point:

  • Someone who steals property and then keeps, uses, or deals with it is thereby dealing with criminal property under Article 30, which makes them “engaged in money laundering” in the statutory sense.

  • The arrest supports that inference. It isn’t a direct label.

Two things that don’t change the answer either

• Timing of the offence relative to the matter.

  • “Criminal conduct” under Article 1 isn’t limited to conduct connected with or contemporaneous with whatever work you did for the person.

  • An offence committed entirely after and with no connection to the matter you closed can still trigger the obligation.

• Legal privilege.

  • For a legal adviser, Article 34D(5)(b) carves out information that comes to you in circumstances of legal privilege.

  • An adverse media hit is public information, not privileged communication, so the carve-out doesn’t engage.

Where the real work is

• None of this means every stale hit becomes an automatic SAR. The genuine gatekeeping question is identity, not relationship history, and it’s worth treating as its own discipline rather than a formality:

  • A verbal “yes, that’s them” is not the same as a documented comparison against the CDD file (name, DOB, nationality, address, ID). Don’t record a match as confirmed until you know which one you actually have.

  • If the check confirms it isn’t the same person, the trigger falls away, but document the check and close the hit out properly, rather than letting it sit unresolved.

  • If the CDD file can’t be located, that’s not a reason to stand down; it’s a separate record-keeping problem in its own right (Article 20(1) of the Money Laundering (Jersey) Order 2008 requires CDD records for at least five years from the end of the relationship), and an unverifiable hit is an unresolved suspicion, not a cleared one.

The bottom line:

• The questions that feel protective here how long ago, how little contact, how stale the file are all questions about the relationship.

• Article 34D asks for the information and its source.

• Once you separate those two things, the “closed matter” instinct stops doing any work at all.

Close and warning

• This piece reflects the Proceeds of Crime (Jersey) Law 1999 as consolidated and in force from 2 July 2025, and Article 20(1) of the Money Laundering (Jersey) Order 2008.

• As ever, this is general commentary, not advice on a specific case. Get proper advice on your own facts before relying on any of it.

Sources

•      Proceeds of Crime (Jersey) Law 1999 official consolidated version: https://www.jerseylaw.je/laws/current/l_8_1999

•      Proceeds of Crime (Jersey) Law 1999 PDF version: https://www.jerseylaw.je/laws/current/PDFs/L_8_1999.pdf

•      Money Laundering (Jersey) Order 2008 record-keeping provisions (Article 20): https://www.jerseylaw.je/laws/enacted/Pages/RO-020-2008.aspx

•      Money Laundering (Jersey) Order 2008 official consolidated PDF: https://www.jerseylaw.je/laws/current/PDFs/RO_20_2008.pdf