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NLJ this week: It’s ambitious, but will it be effective? Analysing ECCTA 2023

08 March 2024
Issue: 8062 / Categories: Legal News , Commercial , Fraud , Criminal
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Performative law-making or a driver for real change? The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 is dissected and examined in this week’s NLJ by Tom Forster KC and Katie Bacon

Forster and Bacon, both of Red Lion Chambers, take an in-depth look at the ‘ambitious’ Act, which extends criminal liability for corporates and creates a ‘failure to prevent’ fraud duty for large organisations, and much more. They set out the background to the Act, discuss its scope and consider how effective it will be in practice. Fraud is a major issue, accounting for about 60% of crime, according to the Office for National Statistics. The National Crime Agency has estimated more than £100bn may be being laundered through the UK every year.

Will the Act work? More resources may be needed. Forster and Bacon assert the Act’s measures ‘represent powerful tools’ but call for the investigative and prosecution agencies to be properly resourced ‘so as to provide a clear and credible enforcement threat’.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Hugh James—Phil Edwards

Hugh James—Phil Edwards

Serious injury teambolstered by high-profile partner hire

Freeths—Melanie Stancliffe

Freeths—Melanie Stancliffe

Firm strengthens employment team with partner hire

DAC Beachcroft—Tim Barr

DAC Beachcroft—Tim Barr

Lawyers’ liability practice strengthened with partner appointment in London

NEWS
Commercial leasehold, the defence of insanity and ‘consent’ in the criminal law are among the next tranche of projects for the Law Commission
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
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
The ex-wife of a Russian billionaire has won her bid to bring her financial relief claim in London, in a unanimous Court of Appeal decision
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