Sanctions & disqualified director checks for law firms
The SRA fined firms over £1m in total for AML failures in 2024–25; the individual COLP is personally exposed.
All layers below are live government open data
- liveUK financial sanctions (OFSI consolidated list) — HM Treasury OFSI · list dated 03/06/2026
- liveCompanies House officers, PSCs, disqualified directors — Companies House API (queried live when you run a screen)
The UK sanctions list today · OFSI consolidated list dated 03/06/2026
Designated individuals
3,834
Designated entities
1,286
Sanctions regimes
31
5,135 designations including 15 ships; the list changes most weeks. Every screen you run uses the list as published at that moment.
What applies to law firms
- AML supervisor
- SRA / Law Society of Scotland / Law Society of Northern Ireland
- Who to screen
- Law firms typically screen clients and counterparties in transactional work.
- In practice
- Firms doing conveyancing, corporate or trust work are relevant persons. Sanctions screening is separate from AML: it applies to every client regardless of matter type, and the Solicitors Regulation Authority expects a documented check at onboarding and when the list changes.
How the screen works
- Enter a company number: we pull the company, every current officer and every person with significant control from Companies House. Or enter a person's name.
- Each name is normalised and compared with the OFSI consolidated list (individuals and entities) and searched on the register of disqualified directors.
- Matches are graded — probable when name and birth month/year agree, possible when only the name (or only the birth year) matches. Nothing is ever reported as confirmed.
- If a source is down the layer reads UNKNOWN, never clear. The £9.99 report gives every match with its evidence and a dated PDF for your file.
Screen a company or a person now
Free summary instantly — match / no match / unknown per list. Full report £9.99.
Run a screen →Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 — HM Treasury / OFSI, Companies House. Sector notes are general information about UK law as understood on 2026-10-15, not advice for your firm; confirm obligations with your supervisor.