Introduction As anticipated in our previous horizon scan (see here), the end of 2023 has brought about significant developments in financial crime enforcement and a real focus on fraud. Looking ahead to 2024, we predict that developments affecting organisations doing business in the UK will include: a focus from organisations on fraud, in particular preparing … Continue Reading
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 crime laws was originally proposed by … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (the Act), which includes the failure to prevent fraud offence (the FTPF Offence), has received Royal Assent. Overview The FTPF Offence will make an organisation liable if it fails to prevent a specified fraud offence from being committed where: (i) an employee or agent commits the fraud; … Continue Reading
The next round of the consideration of the new failure to prevent fraud offence (the FTPF Offence), proposed as part of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (the Bill), saw the House of Lords push back again on restricting application of the offence to large organisations only. The proposal, which the House of Lords … Continue Reading
Background On 4 September 2023, the UK House of Commons debated the House of Lords’ amendments to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (the Bill). The House of Commons voted to include an exemption for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and remove the extension of the proposed offence to failure to prevent money laundering. … Continue Reading
In our latest Regulation Tomorrow Plus podcast, Senior Knowledge Lawyer Catherine Pluck is joined by London Financial Services partners Jonathan Herbst and Katie Stephen, who discuss some recent regulatory developments in relation to culture, as well as some practical steps that firms can be taking in this area. The podcast can be found here.… Continue Reading
The UK Parliament is in the process of debating the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (the Bill), which is expected to be finalised by the end of the year and come into force during 2024. There has been much discussion of the new failure to prevent fraud offence (for more detail see our article … Continue Reading
Updated Friday 8 September 2023 The UK Government intends to introduce a new “failure to prevent fraud” offence as an amendment to its Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (the Bill). On 11 April 2023, the Home Office published a fact sheet (which was updated on 20 June 2023) and tabled an amendment to introduce the failure to prevent … Continue Reading
On 26 October 2022, the Bank of England (the Bank) provided an update on the Data Standards Review, which has been commissioned by the Transforming Data Collection joint transformation programme being led by the Bank of England and FCA with industry. The joint transformation programme’s vision is that ‘The Bank of England and the FCA … Continue Reading
On 26 October 2022, the Bank of England updated its webpage on waivers and modification of rules. The webpage has updated its section on available waivers and modifications by consent to include the following: Modification by Consent of Rule 6.57 of Annex II of Part 6 (Templates and instructions) of the Reporting (CRR) part of … Continue Reading
On 26 October 2022, the European Commission adopted a legislative proposal to make instant payments in euro available to all citizens and businesses holding a bank account in the EU and EEA countries. The proposal aims to ensure that instant payments in euro are affordable, secure, and processed without hindrance across the EU. The proposal, … Continue Reading
On 23 September 2022, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, unveiled the new ‘Growth Plan’. Key takeaways for the financial services sector announced within the plan include: Later this autumn the Government will bring forward an ambitious deregulatory package with its aim being to unleash the potential of the UK financial services sector. This … Continue Reading
In this post, we summarise emerging litigation and investigations trends and their practical implications for financial institutions (FIs). Litigation Litigation trends are largely dependent on social and political changes and we continue to see the impact of the global pandemic and the related financial downturn on emerging litigation trends. Civil fraud claims 2022 has seen … Continue Reading
The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 (the Act), which came into force in March 2022, aimed amongst other things, to give UK sanctions authorities greater power to take enforcement action and impose penalties on persons that breach sanctions restrictions, through the introduction of a “strict liability” test. These new powers of the UK’s … Continue Reading
Ahead of the anticipated FCA policy statement and final rules on the changes to the Appointed Representatives regime, which were expected to be published in H1 2022, in this briefing paper we consider some of the steps that firms should be taking to prepare for the anticipated changes in the FCA’s final policy.… Continue Reading
It has been reported that, in 2021, the FCA experienced a 52% increase in reports of “material” cyber security incidents and we expect this upward trend to continue into 2022. The rise in ransomware in particular was highlighted in the very recent paper published by UK Finance, which called on UK authorities to focus on … Continue Reading
The FCA has recently conducted a review of financial crime controls at a sample of six challenger banks in order to identify the key financial crime risks to which such banks are exposed. The review was prompted by a substantial increase in the volume of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) filed by challenger banks. Whilst the … Continue Reading
The pandemic, and the associated move to hybrid working, and the current geopolitical environment are creating a number of unique governance challenges for regulated firms across the financial services industry. Whilst regulators understand the broader backdrop that firms face, they have also remained clear throughout that firms must take reasonable steps to meet their regulatory … Continue Reading
On 11 March 2022, there was published on the legislation.gov.uk website The Economic Crime (Anti-Money Laundering) Levy Regulations 2022. The statutory instrument makes provision relating to the assessment, payment, collection and recovery of the Economic Crime (Anti-Money Laundering) Levy.… Continue Reading
The onset of the pandemic in March 2020 forced financial institutions (FIs) across the world to change their working practices. Large numbers of employees moved from working in an office five days a week to working from home as countries locked down. Today, it appears unlikely that FIs will return to their previous working models … Continue Reading
Since the pandemic began in March 2020, there has been a rise in fraudulent behaviour as fraudsters look to take advantage of members of the public and financial institutions (FIs). Phishing, text scams and small-scale fraudulent activity targeting the British public were up 285% in the first half of 2021; HM Revenue and Customs estimates … Continue Reading
As 2021 draws to a close, we look ahead to the trends and new requirements that we may see over the next twelve months for financial institutions (FIs) in the white collar crime sphere as regulators, legislators and individuals continue to adapt to the pandemic and prevailing public opinion. 1. An increase in fraud-related investigations … Continue Reading
A new RT Plus episode covering the FCA authorisation process is out now to stream and download. In this episode, Head of Risk Consulting EMEA Advisory, Lisa Lee Lewis, is joined by Compliance Manager, Victoria Pridmore, to discuss various aspects of the authorisation process. They look at recent issues and updates from the FCA in … Continue Reading