The U.K. will get tough on executives who fail to prevent fraud or money laundering in their companies, Prime Minister David Cameron will announce at an anti-corruption summit in London Thursday.
“Corruption is the cancer at the heart of so many of the world’s problems,” Cameron wrote in an opinion piece flagging the proposal, published in The Guardian.
The British prime minister also said he had secured support among several U.K. overseas territories to agree to join with the U.K. and 33 other governments in automatically sharing company ownership lists. And countries including France, Nigeria and the Netherlands will join the U.K. in committing to public registers of beneficial ownership, with others considering following suit.
Cameron said he wants to force foreign companies that purchase property in the U.K. to disclose their true owners in a public register.
“Some high-value properties, especially in London, are being bought by people overseas through anonymous shell companies, using plundered or laundered cash,” he wrote.