Essential Corporate News: Week ending March 18, 2022

The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022

The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 (the Act) received Royal Assent on March 15, 2022. Part 1 of the Act (Part 1) makes provision for the registration of overseas entities who already own, or wish to own, land in the UK.

The primary objectives of Part 1 are: “to prevent and combat the use of land in the UK by overseas entities as a means to launder money or invest illicit funds” and “to increase transparency and public trust in overseas entities engaged in land ownership in the UK”. It seeks to achieve this by establishing a new register of the “beneficial owners” of such entities: the register of overseas entities.

Please see our briefing on Part 1 of the Act here.

Parker Review Committee: Improving the Ethnic Diversity of UK Boards: An update report from the Parker Review

On March 16, 2022 the Parker Review Committee published the results of its latest voluntary census on the ethnic diversity of FTSE 350 companies’ boards. The review was carried out jointly with Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). The Parker Review made a number of recommendations in 2017, including that FTSE 100 companies should have at least one director from a minority ethnic background by 2021 and FTSE 250 companies should have at least one director from a minority ethnic background by 2024.

The results revealed that 89 FTSE 100 companies achieved the target by December 31, 2021, with all FTSE 100 companies responding to the survey. An additional five FTSE 100 appointments have been announced since then and a further three are at an advanced stage in the recruitment process. The FTSE 250, with three years to go until the 2024 target deadline, has made good progress and 128 companies have reported that they have achieved the target, with 233 FTSE 250 companies responding to the survey.

As the majority of these board positions are Non-Executive Directors, the Parker Review Committee recommends that continued attention is focused on this issue to help generate growth in the number of minority ethnic directors in the most influential roles around the boardroom table.

(EY press release: Nearly all FTSE 100 companies have met the Parker Review's ‘One before 2021’ target to improve ethnic diversity of FTSE 100 boards | EY UK – March 16, 2022)

(The Parker Review Committee: Improving the Ethnic Diversity of UK Boards: An update report from the Parker Review – March 16, 2022)