(1) The following are relevant firms for the purposes of regulation 18 (finance: reporting obligations)—
(a) a person that has permission under Part 4A of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Permission to carry on regulated activities);
(b) an undertaking that by way of business—
(i) operates a currency exchange office,
(ii) transmits money (or any representation of monetary value) by any means, or
(iii) cashes cheques that are made payable to customers;
(c) a firm or sole practitioner that is—
(i) a statutory auditor within the meaning of Part 42 of the Companies Act 2006 (Statutory auditors) , or
(ii) a local auditor within the meaning of section 4(1) of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 (general requirements for audit) ;
(d) a firm or sole practitioner that provides to other persons, by way of business—
(i) accountancy services,
(ii) legal or notarial services,
(iii) advice about tax affairs, or
(iv) trust or company services within the meaning of paragraph (2);
(e) a firm or sole practitioner that carries out, or whose employees carry out, estate agency work;
(f) the holder of a casino operating licence within the meaning given by section 65(2)(a) of the Gambling Act 2005 (nature of licence) ;
(g) a person engaged in the business of making, supplying, selling (including selling by auction) or exchanging—
(i) articles made from gold, silver, platinum or palladium, or
(ii) precious stones or pearls.
(h) a cryptoasset exchange provider;
(i) a custodian wallet provider.
(j) a high value dealer;
(k) an art market participant;
(l) an insolvency practitioner;
(m) a firm or sole practitioner (“ P ”) that carries out, or whose employees carry out, letting agency work.
(2) In paragraph (1), “ trust or company services ” means any of the following services—
(a) forming companies or other legal persons;
(b) acting, or arranging for another person to act—
(i) as a director or secretary of a company,
(ii) as a partner of a partnership, or
(iii) in a similar capacity in relation to other legal persons;
(c) providing a registered office, business address, correspondence or administrative address or other related services for a company, partnership or any other legal person or arrangement;
(d) acting, or arranging for another person to act, as—
(i) a trustee of an express trust or similar legal arrangement, or
(ii) a nominee shareholder for a person.
(3) In paragraph (1)—
“ estate agency work ” is to be read in accordance with section 1 of the Estate Agents Act 1979 , but as if references in that section to disposing of or acquiring an interest in land included (despite anything in section 2 of that Act) references to disposing of or acquiring an estate or interest in land outside the United Kingdom where that estate or interest is capable of being owned or held as a separate interest;
“ firm ” means any entity that, whether or not a legal person, is not an individual, and includes a body corporate and a partnership or other unincorporated body.
(3A) In paragraph (1), a “ cryptoasset exchange provider ” means a firm or sole practitioner that by way of business provides one or more of the following services, including where the firm or sole practitioner does so as creator or issuer of any of the cryptoassets involved—
(a) exchanging, or arranging or making arrangements with a view to the exchange of, cryptoassets for money or money for cryptoassets,
(b) exchanging, or arranging or making arrangements with a view to the exchange of, one cryptoasset for another, or
(c) operating a machine which utilises automated processes to exchange cryptoassets for money or money for cryptoassets.
(3B) In paragraph (1), a “ custodian wallet provider ” means a firm or sole practitioner that by way of business provides services to safeguard, or to safeguard and administer—
(a) cryptoassets on behalf of its customers, or
(b) private cryptographic keys on behalf of its customers in order to hold, store and transfer cryptoassets.
(3C) For the purposes of this regulation—
(a) “ cryptoasset ” means a cryptographically secured digital representation of value or contractual rights that uses a form of distributed ledger technology and can be transferred, stored or traded electronically;
(b) “ money ” means—
(i) money in sterling,
(ii) money in any other currency, or
(iii) money in any other medium of exchange,
but does not include a cryptoasset; and
(c) in sub-paragraphs (a) to (c) of paragraph (3A), “ cryptoasset ” includes a right to, or interest in, the cryptoasset.
(3D) In paragraph (1), a “ high value dealer ” means a firm or sole trader that by way of business trades in goods (including an auctioneer dealing in goods), when the firm or sole trader makes or receives, in respect of any transaction, a payment or payments in cash of at least 10,000 euros in total, whether the transaction is executed in a single operation or in several operations which appear to be linked.
(3E) In paragraph (1), an “ art market participant ” means, subject to paragraph (3F), a firm or sole practitioner that is registered or required to register with the Commissioners for His Majesty's Revenue and Customs as an art market participant under regulation 56(5) and (6) of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017.
(3F) A firm or sole practitioner is not an art market participant for the purposes of paragraph (3E) in relation to the sale or storage of a work of art which is created by, or is attributable to, a member of the firm or the sole practitioner.
(3G) For the purposes of this regulation, “ work of art ” means anything which, in accordance with section 21(6) to (6B) of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 (value of imported goods), is a work of art for the purposes of section 21(5)(a) of that Act.
(3H) In paragraph (1), an “ insolvency practitioner ” means a firm or individual who acts as an insolvency practitioner within the meaning of section 388 of the Insolvency Act 1986 or Article 3 of the Insolvency (Northern Ireland) Order 1989.
(3I) In paragraph (1), “ letting agency work ” means work—
(a) consisting of things done in response to instructions received from—
(i) a person (a “prospective landlord”) seeking to find another person to whom to let land for a term of a month or more, or
(ii) a person (a “prospective tenant”) seeking to find land to rent for a term of a month or more, and
(b) done—
(i) in relation to a prospective landlord, from the point that the prospective landlord instructs P, or
(ii) otherwise in the course of concluding an agreement for the letting of land for a term of a month or more.
(3J) For the purposes of paragraph (3I)—
“ land ” includes part of a building and part of any other structure;
“ letting agency work ” does not include the things listed in paragraph (3K) when done by, or by employees of, a firm or sole practitioner if neither the firm or sole practitioner, nor any of their employees, does anything else within paragraph (3I).
(3K) Those things are—
(a) publishing advertisements or disseminating information;
(b) providing a means by which a prospective landlord or a prospective tenant can, in response to an advertisement or dissemination of information, make direct contact with a prospective tenant or a prospective landlord;
(c) providing a means by which a prospective landlord and a prospective tenant can communicate directly with each other;
(d) the provision of legal or notarial services by a barrister, advocate, solicitor or other legal representative communications with whom may be the subject of a claim to professional privilege or, in Scotland, protected from disclosure in legal proceedings on grounds of confidentiality of communications.
(4) Sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) of paragraph (1) are to be read with section 22 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, any relevant order under that section and Schedule 2 to that Act.
(5) For the purposes of regulation 18(1), information or another matter comes to a relevant firm “in the course of carrying on its business” if the information or other matter comes to the firm—
(a) in the case of a relevant firm within paragraph (1)(a), in the course of carrying on an activity in respect of which the permission mentioned in that provision is required;
(b) in the case of a relevant firm within paragraph (1)(c)(i), in the course of carrying out statutory audit work within the meaning of section 1210 of the Companies Act 2006 (meaning of “statutory auditor” etc.) ;
(c) in the case of a relevant firm within paragraph (1)(c)(ii), in the course of carrying out an audit required by the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014;
(d) in the case of a relevant firm within paragraph (1)(f), in the course of carrying on an activity in respect of which the licence mentioned in that provision is required;
(da) in the case of a relevant firm within paragraph (1)(k)—
(i) in the course of trading, or acting as an intermediary in the sale or purchase of, works of art when the value of the transaction, or a series of linked transactions, amounts to 10,000 euros or more, or
(ii) in the course of storing works of art where the value of the works of art so stored for a person amounts to 10,000 euros or more;
(e) in the case of a relevant firm within any other provision of paragraph (1), in the course of carrying on an activity mentioned in that provision.