For trainees and junior lawyers · English law

Anti-Money Laundering

A new company, owned through a trust, buys a Cambridge office building. You act for the buyer.

How a law firm checks a new client and its money, taught through one compliance file, tab by tab.

Your desk at the law firm in February, drawn straight on against a plain wall. Pinned to the wall above it is one sheet: the ownership chart you drew. At the foot, two boxes in a column, the buying company and the offshore company that owns it; above them a triangle, the trust; two small circles off its side, the beneficiaries; and one small circle above it, the settlor. The one line from the triangle up to the settlor is drawn in copper: the control the register left out. On the desk the File, a ring binder, stands open at a tab, a lamp leans over it, and a desk telephone sits at the left. Beside the File a kitchen egg timer is still running: the timetable follows the checks. No one is at the desk.

You will be able to:

  • Find the real person behind a company and its owners
  • Check where a client’s money and wealth come from
  • Know when to report, and what never to say

10 chapters with tests · a final exam · a certificate · about 3 hours in all · published 20 October 2026

Start Chapter 1

Chapters

Module 1

The Firm and the Client

Module 2

Who the Client Is

Module 3

The Money

Module 4

Reporting and After

One case runs through every chapter: a new company, owned through a trust, asks a Cambridge firm to buy an office building. Read the full Client Due Diligence File →

Glossary: every term in plain English · Final exam: 30 questions, open book