With less than five months to go until the new UK failure to prevent fraud offence comes into force on 1 September 2025, many organisations are conducting risk assessments and enhancing anti-fraud policies and procedures with a view to preventing fraud and providing themselves with a defence should this be necessary.
The new offence will
In the first episode of the Global Investigations Podcast Series, Andrew Reeves (Partner, Investigations, Enforcement and Compliance team, London) is joined by Ruth Cowley (Head of Disputes and Investigations, London), Keith Rosen (Head of Risk Advisory, US) and Sharon Oded (Head of Investigations, Amsterdam) to discuss the early stages of an investigation; best practice in
Introduction
Whistleblowing is on the rise – both within organisations and to authorities. An increase in whistleblowing is positive: it shows employees feel able to speak up, allows issues to be escalated, investigated and where necessary remediated. However, the increase in whistleblowing also presents challenges for companies to ensure that they are dealing effectively and
This is the second article in our series breaking down the steps that companies will need to take to put in place “reasonable procedures” to prevent fraud. Our first post, which focussed on how to conduct effective fraud risk assessments, can be found here.
This comes ahead of the new UK failure to
The government have confirmed that the guidance in relation to what constitutes ‘reasonable procedures’ for the prevention of fraud is likely to be published in ‘early summer’, meaning that the new Failure to Prevent Fraud Offence would come into force by the end of the year.
See here for our article summarising the new offence
Many companies are currently considering what steps they need to take in relation to the new UK failure to prevent fraud offence (which is expected to come into force later this year or in early 2025).
By way of recap, a company will be liable for failing to prevent fraud by its associated persons (e.g.
The SFO has published its 5-year strategy document (the Strategy Document), highlighting a number of areas of focus, from international coordination with counterparts to capitalising on technology and incentivising their workforce.
This follows Director of the SFO, Nick Ephgrave’s, speech in February 2024 setting out key priorities (see our recent Investigations and Enforcement horizon
Following the enactment of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA) last month, the UK Government has proposed in the Criminal Justice Bill (CJB) (here) to extend the scope of corporate liability for senior managers beyond certain economic offences to all UK criminal offences.
Reform of economic
Introduction
Following the unprecedented levels of sanctions activity in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has resulted in companies dealing with the most significant and complex sanctions regimes across multiple jurisdictions, authorities in the US, UK and EU are now turning their attention to enforcement of those sanctions.
Sanctions authorities have indicated that they