Partnership Law: Used, Misused or Abused?

Abstract

This article analyses the increasing use of UK partnerships for criminal purposes, often in other jurisdictions, and argues that the regulatory responses are inadequate, and must be supplemented by a comprehensive ethical framework. I first argue that partnerships offer substantial benefits for a variety of businesses, but that they also have vulnerabilities which have led to their misuse and even abuse through criminal activities, which I also discuss. I then analyse the deficiencies of the regulatory measures designed to tackle the abuses, including requirements to disclose participant identity and accounts, and anti-money laundering and tax evasion measures. Finally, I evaluate the use of a supplementary ethical framework to reduce the abuses, and examine how such a framework could be created. My analysis provides an understanding of the causes and consequences of partnership abuses and of how they can be overcome. This advances the ongoing debate in the UK over the abuse of partnerships and the wider issue of business transparency, and has implications for the many other jurisdictions in which UK partnerships operate and in which the abuses take place, as well as for jurisdictions which have similar partnership vehicles to those in the UK. General partnerships, limited partnerships, LLPs, money laundering, tax evasion, tax avoidance, regulation, ethics, transparency, accounts