Are limited partnerships fit for purpose?

Limited partnerships across the UK (and indeed in the Republic of Ireland, where the relevant law is similar) have been identified as being used to facilitating cross-border criminal activities, including large scale money laundering (the infamous Russian and other ‘laundromats’), corruption, drugs and weapons trafficking and more, as well as civil offences involving diversion of taxation. Yet the UK government has been slow to act in response, and it is far from clear that the proposed reforms will be sufficient to end the abuses and restore the reputation of UK partnership vehicles. Indeed, the limited action taken so far has simply caused the wrongdoing to migrate from Scotland, where it initially surfaced, and against which the only action so far has been implemented, to the rest of the UK and more recently to the Republic of Ireland. 

 The project aims to examine the current state of the law, the proposals so far made for reforms, and the more extensive reforms which are required, both to limited partnerships and the wider range of partnerships available in the UK.