Blog Post
SFO proposes creation of broader 'failure to prevent' laws
The Director of the Serious Fraud Office and the President of the Queen's Bench Division have lobbied Parliament to create an overarching law of 'failure to prevent' applicable to all areas of economic crime in order to achieve greater success in the prosecution of corporate entities.
Blog Post
Government launches updated anti-money laundering strategy with a focus on the role of "professional enablers" such as lawyers, accountants and estate agents
On 1 November 2018, Minister for Security and Economic Crime, Ben Wallace, launched the Government's updated Serious and Organised Crime Strategy (originally released in October 2013) (the "Strategy"). To put the revised Strategy into force £48m of funding was promised to tackle economic crime and illicit finance. The National Economic Crime Centre, a specialist unit within the National Crime Agency ("NCA") with officers from the NCA, Serious Fraud Office, HMRC, and police forces, was launched on 5 November 2018 as part of this drive against money laundering and economic crime.
Blog Post
Reflection on the recent High Court decision: the SFO can request production of documents held abroad by foreign companies
A recent High Court decision has ruled on the international application of a section 2 Criminal Justice Act (CJA) 1987 notice. It was held that the notice was enforceable against a non-UK company and it accordingly could be compelled to disclose documents to the SFO held outside of the jurisdiction.
Blog Post
Canadian Court Awards Cryptocurrency Owner a Tracing Order
Last month, the Supreme Court of British Columbia awarded a Singapore company, Copytrack, an order that it was entitled to trace Ether tokens which had been issued to an investor by mistake.
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NCA sees off challenge to its first UWO
The new powers of unexplained wealth orders (UWO) and the supporting “interim freezing orders” commenced on 31 January 2018. Criticism has been made of government authorities' (the NCA, HMRC, the FCA, the SFO and the CPS) seeming reluctance to avail themselves of their newfound investigative tool.
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'Persons Unknown' freezing orders set to turbo-charge worldwide asset recovery actions
The use of injunctions against 'Persons Unknown', a class of defendants who cannot be identified, has been well-established in the English Court for several years. But until now the Persons Unknown jurisdiction had not been applied to a world-wide freezing injunction in the English Court.
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How effective is the Bribery Act? Fieldfisher's submission to the House of Lords select committee is published
Seven years after the Bribery Act 2010 ("Act") came into force a House of Lords select committee (HLSC) has been tasked with examining its effectiveness and impact. Under the Act, as well as the offences of offering or giving and requesting or receiving bribes, the offence of bribing foreign public officials and a strict liability corporate offence of failing to prevent bribery were established. The Act is an extremely wide reaching and stringent piece of legislation. It applies to any business with a UK connection and to all UK citizens, wherever in the world the bribery takes place. The HLSC opened a call for evidence in June and has heard from the Government, anti-corruption NGOs, trade experts and, most recently, the defence, aerospace and construction sectors. As the HLSC is considering the impact of the Act on business and whether the guidance could be improved, using our knowledge obtained from assisting numerous businesses with compliance and issue management, on 26 July 2018 we made written submissions.
Blog Post
Back from the brink
The Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) regime may have been saved from the brink of disaster today by the release of the Court of Appeal's judgment in the case of The Serious Fraud Office v Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Ltd