There has been a legislative shift in the approach to corporate criminal liability. The government is intent on holding companies criminally liable in circumstances where they fail to prevent the commission of certain offences. This shift has seen the introduction of a corporate offence of failing to prevent bribery, in the Bribery Act 2010. Six years later, a further corporate offence of failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion was introduced by the Criminal Finances Act 2017 and next year, the government looks set to introduce a further corporate failure to prevent offence, in this case failure to prevent fraud and possibly money laundering in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill which is currently in its final stages of passing through Parliament.
A defence to such offences will only be available to Companies who are able to demonstrate that they have adequate procedures and policies in place to prevent the commission of the specified offences, and as such there has never been a more important time to review your Corporate Financial Crime Compliance programme.
This series of webinars looks at the various criminal offences, the criminal penalties and some of the steps your business can (and should) be taking to ensure that it is compliant with the legislation thereby protecting itself, its people and its stakeholders.
