Part 5 – Miscellaneous Money laundering and terrorist financing Section 185: Money laundering: information orders
This section amends section 339ZH of POCA, which allow the relevant court to make an IO.
	Section 185(7) inserts new subsections (6A), (6B) and (6C). Subsections (6A) and (6B) set out 3 new conditions for application for an IO which do not require the information required to be given under the order to relate to a matter arising from either a disclosure under Part 7 of POCA or from a corresponding disclosure requirement where the information to which the order relates has been requested by a foreign authority. The information sought must be to assist the NCA or a foreign FIU to conduct its operational or strategic analysis functions relevant to money laundering. Operational analysis enables FIUs to identify specific targets to follow the trail of particular activities of transactions to determine links between those targets and possible proceeds of crime. Strategic analysis enables FIUs to identify money laundering trends and patterns, this information will be used to determine money laundering related threats and vulnerabilities. Subsection (6B) stipulates that the information provided by the National Crime Agency to the foreign FIU must be for the purposes of the criminal intelligence function of the National Crime Agency, so far as it relates to money laundering. Subsection (6C) sets out the meaning of "money laundering" in subsections (6A) and (6B).
	Section 185(10) amends subsection 12 of section 339ZH, inserting the definition of an "authorised NCA officer", "the criminal intelligence function" and "foreign FIU".
	Section 185(12) inserts section 339ZL into POCA. It creates a duty on the Secretary of State to make a code of practice in relation to conditions 3 and 4. The code of practice must provide guidance to assist authorised NCA officers (and the Director General of the NCA) in connection with the making of applications for an IO in reliance on those conditions. In the case of applications made to the sheriff, the guidance must assist those officers with the making of requests for such to a procurator fiscal. A court may only make an IO if it is satisfied that the relevant NCA officer has had regard to the code of practice before he or she has made the application (or, in Scotland, before he or she has made a request for such to a procurator fiscal). Subsections (3) to (9) of section 339ZL set out various procedural requirements for the making and bringing into force of the code of practice, as well as supplementary provision in relation to failures to comply with the code, admissibility of the code as evidence in other proceedings and definitions.