Regulation and investigations

The SFO’s new cooperation guidance SFO Corporate Guidance – GOV.UK (published on 24 April) updates the SFO’s original cooperation guidance published in 2019 and comes ahead of the new failure to prevent fraud offence coming into force in September 2025 (see here: Failure to prevent fraud: What should you be doing before September? | Global

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

Speak up and other internal investigations are on the rise (see our article here) amid increasing scrutiny from the media, public, authorities and other stakeholders of how investigations are conducted. Indeed, in higher profile matters the way in which an investigation is conducted can receive as much attention as the underlying issues.

The recent

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

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.

Regardless of your position on whether cryptocurrency is a legitimate method of payment, you can’t deny its permeation into mainstream society recently.  From donations to Ottawa “freedom” protests[1] to countries approving bitcoin as legal tender,[2] the use of cryptocurrency is emerging beyond the dark web.

But with use comes misuse. In 2021, there

Les dirigeants et administrateurs canadiens devraient bien prendre en note les changements de priorités en matière d’application des dispositions pénales aux États-Unis. Dans de récents discours lors de la tenue de la 37e édition du National Institute on White Collar Crime de l’ABA, le procureur général des États-Unis, Merrick Garland, et le procureur général

Increasing enforcement of anti-bribery and corruption regulations and an increased focus on compliance have made a pre-acquisition compliance due diligence a common feature of cross-border M&A transactions in Africa and elsewhere. Many experienced transaction attorneys and dealmakers will be aware of the limits of even the most thorough due diligence. This has led to concerns