Last month, the Law Commission published its proposed reforms to corporate criminal liability.

Although the government has focused on economic crime recently, it may be some time before any reforms are implemented and the government will need to decide whether to adopt any of the Commission’s proposals, or proffer their own, as well as any legislative timings.

In this article for Business Reporter, Nick Vamos and Dan Hyde review some of elements of note of the potential changes. These include the “identification principle” and a new “failure to prevent fraud” offence, and both would greatly affect UK companies and non-UK companies whose business is partly conducted in the UK.

Further, the article comments on what the proposals would mean for firms, where they might want to focus their efforts to ensure compliance, as well as what may lie ahead. It also notes that regulated firms may have a head-start on corporates in other sectors, given current obligations under financial services legislation, but warns that the requirements under any new laws are likely to be more extensive than the measures currently in place.

Find out more

Read more about the Law Commission’s report and the potential reform options for the laws in England and Wales on corporate criminal liability in our article ‘Hauling companies into the dock: Law Commission issues paper on corporate criminal liability‘.