Unwrapping the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act

Watch our webinar on-demand where we discussed the practical implications of the economic crime reforms introduced under the UK’s Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act.

The Act, which received Royal Assent in October 2023, contains the most fundamental changes to the law on economic crime since the Bribery Act. The reforms have extraterritorial effect and will require organisations in all sectors to take steps to ensure that they meet the requirements under the Act.

In particular, the Act introduces:

• a new criminal offence of Failure to Prevent Fraud - which will make commercial organisations liable if their employees or agents commit a broad range of fraud offences intending to benefit the organisation; and
• changes to the basis on which corporates can be liable for economic crimes - which will now involve a lower "senior manager" threshold.

Practical examples of the types of scenarios that could engage the new offence include: misselling, manipulation of financial forecasts/accounts/sales targets or issuing misleading company statements (e.g. greenwashing).

Action is required now - some elements of these changes have already come into force, while others will take effect later this year.

In this 30-minute webinar, members of our Criminal Law team - Camilla de Silva, Jon Malik and David Bridge - discussed the practical implications of the reforms, the steps firms need to be considering now, and answered your questions.