Source of Wealth Enquiries Demystified - Practical Case Studies for Law Firms

Introduction

With the SRA currently appearing to be in a holding position, many firms may have a brief window to reflect on whether their AML enquiries are genuinely robust - and defensible.

One area that continues to cause uncertainty across the profession is source of wealth (SOW). In particular:

• What enquiries are we actually required to make?
• How do SOW enquiries differ from source of funds (SOF)?
• When is client explanation sufficient, and when is documentary evidence required?
• How would we recognise if something is wrong?

Beyond standard identification checks and transactional SOF enquiries, firms are often unsure how far they should probe a client’s wider financial background - and what evidence they must retain to satisfy the regulator.

Presented by AML expert Trevor Hellawell, this live, interactive virtual classroom session uses realistic case studies to explore how SOW enquiries should work in practice and how firms can evidence proportionate, risk-based decision-making.

What You Will Learn

This live and interactive session will cover the following:

• Customer Due Diligence (CDD): The Essentials
• Obtaining key documentation
• Assessing and vetting that documentation
• Source of wealth investigations
• Source of funds investigations
• Source of Wealth in Practice
• Key questions to ask clients
• What firms are really seeking to understand
• The distinction between SOW and SOF - and why it matters
• Evidence & Risk
• When client explanations may be sufficient
• When supporting evidence is required
• How to record proportionate decisions
• Case Studies
• Common and high-risk scenarios
• How regulators may view your approach
• What ‘good’ looks like in practice

Recording of live sessions: Soon after the Learn Live session has taken place you will be able to go back and access the recording - should you wish to revisit the material discussed.