Last week, two women who had accused financier Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse filed lawsuits in the US against JP Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank, alleging the banks had ignored suspicious withdrawals from his accounts and payments. The lawsuits ultimately accuse the banks of aiding and facilitating Epstein’s conduct. Would such a lawsuit be possible […]
Changes to the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 may mark a turn for crypto regulation in the UK. Could UK regulation soon rival the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA)? Peter FitzGerald and Amalia Neenan write in CityAM.
The recent ups and downs in the crypto industry are uncomfortably analogous to a Shakespearean tragedy, with the trials and tribulations the sector has experienced in the past months reminding us of other ‘get-quick-rich’ schemes of days gone by, real or fictional. In this article for The Banker, Keith Oliver and Amalia Neenan review some of […]
The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) has announced that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) “has made significant progress” in implementing the recommendations made in the wake of the Unaoil and Serco failings. This article considers this progress and asks whether the SFO can make meaningful changes, or whether its hands are tied? Detailed recommendations The SFO […]
Carbon credits feature high on the agenda at the recent COP 27 in Egypt. Once presented as a panacea for corporations struggling to keep apace with net zero targets, awareness is growing on the extent to which fraudsters are able to abuse carbon credit markets, and the need for tougher regulation. In this article for […]
By publishing the fifth iteration of the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB) on 21 November 2022, the World Benchmarking Alliance continues to publicly rank companies with the aim of incentivising certain industries to improve their human rights performance by helping them to better understand the current level of practice among competitors. Methodology The CHRB focuses […]
At the end of September 2022, almost seven years after the introduction of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, standard 25700:2022 of the British Standards Institution (BSI) came into effect, offering guidance and recommendations on organisational responses to modern slavery. As explained in this series, the standard provides a practical roadmap for navigating the complex modern […]
Two recent reviews from the Commons Justice Committee into the infamous collapse of a couple of Serious Fraud Office (SFO) cases both concluded that the collapses were due to significant disclosure failures. Both reviews also identified serious organisational issues, which were addressed in evidence from SFO Director Lisa Osofsky and Chief Operating Officer Michelle Crotty. […]
When offenders are convicted of serious acquisitive crimes, such as fraud, statutory mechanisms are in place to deprive them of the benefit of their criminal conduct. Courts will determine the appropriate order, but if the defendant does not pay, the order is often enforced against their assets and results in an additional period of imprisonment. […]
In the summer, a UK politician became one of the latest public figures to face questions about their tax affairs, joining the ranks of numerous personalities, including actors, politicians, singers and comedians, who over the years have faced similar scrutiny. In this article for Tax Notes, Rachel Cook and James Tyler explain how a taxpayer […]
