who is required to file suspicious activity reports
Suspicious activity report In financial regulation, a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) or Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) is a report made by a financial institution about suspicious or potentially suspicious activity. The criteria to decide when a report must be made varies from country to country but generally is any financial transaction that does not make sense to the financial institution, is unusual for that particular client or appears to be done only for the purpose of hiding or obfuscating a transaction. The report is filed with that country's financial crime enforcement unit, which is typically a specialist agency designed to collect and analyse transactions and report these to relevant law enforcement units. Front line staff in the financial institution have the responsibility to identify transactions that may be suspicious and these are reported to a designated person that is responsible for the reporting the transaction. The financial institution is not allowed to inform the client or the parties to the transaction that a SAR has been lodged.
Freedom of Information Act 2000 The act creates a general right of access, on request, to information held by public authorities. On receipt of a freedom of information claim a public authority has two corresponding duties. First, a duty to inform a member of the public whether or not it holds the information requested (s1(1)(a)), and second, if it does hold that information, to communicate it to the person making that request (s1(1)(b)). As the corollary to this, the Act thus grants the equivalent rights to a confirmation or denial and communication of relevant information to an individual making a request under the act. The basic duty is supplemented by an additional duty to aid individuals in making requests and ensuring that they frame their FOI requests appropriately. (s.16(1))