Bonar Mercer, a solicitor at MacRoberts in Edinburgh, looks at a fresh consultation on on proposed reforms to the limited partnerships regime

Scottish Limited Partnership (SLPs) (as well as English Limited Partnerships) are a type of business structure formed under the Limited Partnership Act 1907. Unlike English Limited Partnership, SLPs have separate legal personality meaning they can, among other things, enter into contracts and own property in their own name. It was partly this distinction that resulted in the Persons of Significant Control regime (designed to improve transparency of UK corporate entities) being extended in 2017 to apply to SLPs (but not English Limited Partnerships).

Negative publicity surrounding the use of SLPs is nothing new. The government department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) published a consultation and call for evidence in January 2017. It was concluded from the responses to that consultation that there was a continuing need for limited partnerships to facilitate legitimate commercial transactions but that concerns remained about the prevalence of limited partnerships (and particularly SLPs) in large scale international money laundering schemes.

BEIS reported that according to the National Crime Agency SLPs played a part in a disproportionately high number of suspected criminal activities. They also said that five individuals were responsible for registering over 50 per cent of all SLPs registered between January 2016 and May 2017. BEIS have therefore launched a further call for evidence on proposed reform to limited partnerships which closes on 23 July 2018.

The latest consultation sets out several proposed reforms that would apply to limited partnerships, including SLPs. These can be summarised as follows:

The negative publicity surrounding SLPs has to some extent driven greater scrutiny over their use in corporate transactions much more quickly that any reform of the law has. Some may say that the proposed reforms on the whole are not exactly ground breaking, particularly when compared against the comparatively extensive reporting and transparency obligations on UK limited companies. However given the commercial importance of limited partnerships to UK private equity structures identified by BEIS, a balance clearly needs to be struck between driving out illegitimate use of limited partnerships to protect the integrity and reputation of doing business in the UK and maintaining a legal framework which makes the UK an attractive place to do business. It’s for that reason that SLPs are here to stay and that whatever reforms are ultimately implemented will be unlikely to require disclosure and/or reporting to the same extent as applies to UK limited companies.