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Corporate liability: a missed opportunity?

08 March 2024 / Tom Forster KC , Katie Bacon
Issue: 8062 / Categories: Features , Commercial , Fraud , Criminal
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Does the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 work hard enough to promote good corporate governance? Tom Forster KC and Katie Bacon discuss
  • An in-depth discussion of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, which extends the ambit of criminal liability for corporates, and imposes on large organisations a ‘failure to prevent’ fraud duty.
  • Sets out the background to the Act and discusses its scope, asking if it is performative law-making or a driver for real change.

Economic crime is prevalent in society today. According to the Office for National Statistics, fraud accounted for an estimated 60% of the main crime types experienced by adults in the year ending June 2023. The National Crime Agency’s assessment is that it is a realistic possibility that over £100bn is laundered every year through the UK or through UK corporate structures using money-laundering methods.

The government’s response, in part, has been the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA 2023). It received Royal Assent on 26 October

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NEWS
Tech companies will be legally required to prevent material that encourages or assists serious self-harm appearing on their platforms, under Online Safety Act 2023 regulations due to come into force in the autumn
Commercial leasehold, the defence of insanity and ‘consent’ in the criminal law are among the next tranche of projects for the Law Commission
The Bar has a culture of ‘impunity’ and ‘collusive bystanding’ in which making a complaint is deemed career-ending due to a ‘cohort of untouchables’ at the top, Baroness Harriet Harman KC has found
Lawyers have broadly welcomed plans to electronically tag up to 22,000 more offenders, scrap most prison terms below a year and make prisoners ‘earn’ early release
David Lammy, Ellie Reeves and Baroness Levitt have taken up office at the Ministry of Justice, following the cabinet reshuffle
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