Feb 28, 2022 Economic Crime Bill to be fast-tracked this week: transparency reform, UWO changes and new sanctions legislation By Lorna Emson Francis Bond Joe Gaffney Prompted by the crisis in Ukraine, the UK Government has announced that it will bring forward the Economic Crime Bill. It has also...
Feb 24, 2022 UWOs: Remember those? By Neill Blundell Max Hobbs Joe Gaffney A House of Commons briefing paper, published on 22 February 2022, has criticised the use of Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs). The paper...
Feb 14, 2022 The big freeze on crypto-assets: HMRC seizes its first ever NFT By Neill Blundell James Reid HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has announced its first ever seizure of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) as part of a £1.4m VAT fraud...
Feb 14, 2022 Fighting economic crime in the UK: an overview By Neill Blundell Max Hobbs Joe Gaffney On Thursday 10 February, the House of Commons Library published a briefing paper on economic crime in the UK, which summarises recent...
Feb 10, 2022 The Economic Crime Bill: reform is coming By Neill Blundell Max Hobbs Joe Gaffney We recently commented on a fortnight of fast-paced developments in the economic crime space. As we observed, it appears that (despite...
Feb 08, 2022 New register of home ownership? Sadiq Khan calls for a register of foreign-owned UK property to aid Russia sanctions By Lorna Emson Max Hobbs Francis Bond Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has issued a call for a new register of foreign-owned properties in the UK, citing the fact that the...
Feb 02, 2022 Economic crime in the UK: What is going on? By Neill Blundell Max Hobbs Francis Bond There have been so many developments in the realm of “economic crime” in the last two weeks that it has been hard to keep up.To summarise...
Nov 22, 2021 Paying the price: UK proposes mandatory rules for banks to compensate fraud victims By Lorna Emson James Reid The UK government has indicated that UK banks will be required to provide refunds to victims of “push payment” fraud (also known as “APP”...
Apr 30, 2021 Conviction and collapse: a mixed week for the SFO By Lorna Emson James Reid On Wednesday the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced that it had secured a corporate conviction against GPT Special Project Management...
Sep 24, 2020 SFO uses its first listed asset order By Neill Blundell James Reid On Wednesday the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced that it had used its first listed asset order (LAO) to seize £500,000 of jewellery,...
Sep 14, 2020 (Anti)-money laundering? The FCA has brought 0 AML prosecutions in 2020 By Neill Blundell Max Hobbs A new Freedom of Information Act request served on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has revealed that so far in 2020 the FCA has...
Jul 09, 2020 Furlough fraud: HMRC makes its first arrest By Neill Blundell Max Hobbs Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has reportedly made its first arrest of a person in connection with suspected furlough fraud.The...
Jun 24, 2020 The Council of the EU calls for greater financial crime powers By Neill Blundell Francis Bond The Council of the European Union (the Council) has called for a series of cross-continent actions designed to tackle financial crime....
Jun 10, 2020 Who knew? Company directors may soon be jointly liable for furlough fraud By Neill Blundell Max Hobbs Last week, HMRC announced plans to penalise company directors who intentionally breach the rules of the UK Government’s furlough scheme...
May 06, 2020 Business beware: Covid-19 is leading to increased money laundering, fraud and terrorist financing By Neill Blundell Francis Bond In a report published yesterday, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has set out the “unprecedented global challenges” facing...
Apr 24, 2020 Covid-19 financial crime is a global challenge By Neill Blundell Francis Bond The surge in Covid-19 related financial crime necessitates an urgent international response, a leading banking association has said. We...