Scotland's most notorious "secret firms" owe theoretical fines of £2 billion for failing to reveal their owners.

New figures obtained by Labour have once again underlined how few Scottish limited partnerships or SLPs are complying with basic anti-money laundering rules imposed last year.

The firms, dubbed Britain's home-grown secrecy vehicle, have turned in to the equivalent of a numbered Swiss bank account for gangsters and corrupt despots around the world - including those close to Vladimir Putin's Kremlin - and are expected to be banned. 

UK ministers have signalled they will kill off the corporate entity after a three-year campaign of investigative journalism from The Herald their industrial scale abuse.

Thousands of them have failed to name their owner, a person of significant control (PSC), and are therefore liable to fines of up to £500 a day beginning in June. If they were all successfully prosecuted, they would have to pay £2.2 billion.

Labour MP Annaliese Dodds asked the UK Government how many of the official 29,709 registered SLPs had complied with PSC rules. The number was 12,897. That means just 43 per cent are compliant. None have been prosecuted.

Scots-born Ms Dodds said: “This is yet another sign of the Government failing to take action on money laundering.

"Time and again we are finding instances where the Government introduce legislation but fail to properly resource authorities so that they can take action.

"We need immediate and powerful action to stop the flow of dirty money from Russia and elsewhere into the UK and that starts by shining the light of transparency on dodgy corporate vehicles like SLPs.”

“Only two weeks ago we discovered that no prosecutions had been brought forward as a result of the 2017 criminal offence for failure to prevent money laundering. This is another advert to oligarchs and crooks that the UK is open to business due to the Conservative Government’s failure to use their powers.”

“The Government must begin collecting the up to £2.2bn owed in fines, as taxpayers are continuing to lose up to £8.4m each day that action is not taken.”

The Herald:

Scottish Labour’s economy spokesperson Jackie Baillie MSP said: “These are deeply troubling revelations.

“It has been clear for some time now that SLPs could be used for dubious purposes, including laundering illegal Russian funds.

“It is welcome to see reports today that the UK Government is considering clamping down on SLPs, but the reality is this should have happened years ago.

"And where there is legislation already in place, it needs to be robustly enforced. At a time of austerity, not collecting fines of £2.2 billion is extraordinary, and sends the wrong signal to these dodgy companies.

“We need to see urgent action from the UK Government to stop SLPs being used for dubious purposes and improve transparency surrounding them.”

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Jackie Baillie

Tracing the owners of non-compliant SLPs would be extraordinarily difficult, according to researcher Richard Smith. 

Many may still be registered whle not functioning. And, as The Herald revealed this year, some SLPs - zombie firms - can be dissolved before being revived with limited paperwork. The Government figures obtained by Ms Dodds may not, therefore, be entirely reliable.

Our research showed only one in a dozen of Scotland’s increasingly notorious “tax haven” shell firms had named a real person as its owner under new transparency rule by September. 

We found three-quarters of those individuals named as owners were from the former Soviet Union, especially Ukraine and Russia

More recent research carried out by investigative group Bellingcat this month discovered a similar pattern.

Its study of relative new SLPs - those created in 2017, found Ukraine could claim the largest number of individuals named as PSCs, followed by Russia and then Belarus. 

The Herald's Analysis of SLPs, different to government, as of September 2017

The Herald: