Commentary on Sections Schedule 10: Tax Section 452: Crown servants
642.Section 452 provides that the money laundering offences in Part 7 of the Act and the offence of prejudicing an investigation under section 342 can be applied, by regulations made by the Secretary of State, to persons in the public service of the Crown. The provision is required because otherwise Crown Servants would not be subject to those criminal offences in the exercise of their duties as Crown Servants, although areas of Crown business may potentially be vulnerable to money laundering. The provision closely follows the existing legislation set out in section 61(1) of the Drug Trafficking Act 1994 and at section 93G(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (as amended by the Criminal Justice Act 1993). Under the existing legislation regulations have been made applying the offences to the Director of National Savings and his staff in order to put them in the same position as those in financial service businesses in the private sector.