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R (Greyhound Board of Great Britain Ltd) v Welsh Ministers [2026] EWHC 670 (Admin) What are the practical implications of this case? The ruling reinforces the constitutional divide between the courts and the legislature. It explains that the scheme and framework of the Government of Wales Act 2006 (GWA 2006) embody that separation of powers, and that any judicial attempt to recognise and enforce a common law obligation on Welsh Ministers to consult prior to introducing legislation in the Senedd would trespass upon that boundary. This is not a departure from established principle; case law has already upheld comparable rules for lawmakers in Scotland and at Westminster. However, this is the first express confirmation of the position for Welsh lawmakers, and the first time this dimension of the GWA 2006 has been analysed in such depth. The court examined earlier
The solution arrived through the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), a quasi‑judicial body handling mass claims, created under UN Security Council Resolution 687. By addressing environmental harm—most notably via its ‘F4’ claim class—the UNCC set a seminal benchmark shaping how international law and contemporary arbitral panels allocate financial responsibility for wartime ecological devastation. With present-day wars in areas such as Eastern Europe and the Middle East bringing dam breaches, strikes on chemical facilities, and the burning of farmland, the UNCC’s legacy endures as an essential reference point for states, global investors, and companies engaged in post‑conflict arbitration. The F4 claims: Quantifying the unquantifiable Prior to the 1990s, mechanisms in international law for war reparations overwhelmingly favoured property loss, foregone earnings, and bodily injury. The natural world was commonly treated as a mute, non-compensable victim of armed hostilities...
Understanding the farming business as a business Many farms still use long-standing structures that arose by habit, not strategy. Sole traders, informal partnerships and outdated partnership deeds are common. While once effective, such setups can cause major issues around succession, tax planning and involving the next generation. A corporate team can take a fresh, business-led view of the farm, asking: Who owns the land and other critical assets? Who manages daily operations? Who carries the risk and who enjoys the return? What is the enduring plan for succession? From this review, the team can confirm whether the current setup is fit for purpose or if an alternative — for example an updated partnership agreement, a company, a limited liability partnership, or a blended model — would better meet the family’s aims. Tax efficiency through joined-up advice Tax sits at the centre of most
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External guidance on corporate co-operation and enforcement in relation to corporate criminal offending External guidance on corporate co-operation and enforcement in relation to corporate criminal offending supersedes and replaces the SFO’s 2019 co-operation guidance. It underscores swift self-reporting and comprehensive co-operation with SFO investigations as pivotal factors for prosecutors when considering a DPA to conclude a corporate investigation and to refrain from formal charges, save in exceptional cases and subject to prosecutorial discretion. However, the availability of a DPA is not ruled out where a company has not self-reported, provided it has offered exemplary co-operation with the SFO’s investigation. DPAs have been deployed in the US for more than 30 years as a corporate pre-trial diversion mechanism, alongside non-prosecution agreements, with federal authorities entering approximately 327 corporate DPAs in total between 1992 and the present day. Reflecting a broader global movement in favour of...
Home Office plans to prohibit public-sector organisations from paying ransoms, and to require other entities to consult with the authorities before contemplating any transfer to their attackers, are designed to undercut the prevailing ransomware business model by making the UK a far less lucrative destination. Yet lawyers also warn the measures, set out in a wide‑ranging government consultation, may underestimate their opponents. Julian Hayes, a partner at BCL Solicitors LLP, described the idea as “deceptively simple and unquestionably well‑intentioned”, but said it verges on the naive. He added that, even if it succeeded, it would simply divert ransomware operators towards softer targets. According to the Home Office, ransomware drew in more than £1bn from victims worldwide in 2023. It has become a profitable stream of cash for cybercriminals and state‑sponsored actors able to penetrate businesses and public agencies and seize control of their...
In this issue: Bribery, corruption, sanctions and export controls Environmental offences Financial services and pensions offences Food safety and hygiene offences Fraud, forgery, tax and theft offences Health and safety and corporate manslaughter offences Local authority prosecutions Corporate Crime in Scotland International Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information Bribery, corruption, sanctions and export controls UK sanctions regime review lacks detail on beefing up meagre enforcement Proposals from the UK government to merge sanctions lists and accelerate action on civil-law infringements are likely to be welcomed as objectives, yet the refreshed approach sidesteps the problem of uneven enforcement. The newest review of the sanctions framework gives little clarity on how to make improvements: ministers talk about boosting the deterrent effect of enforcement, but there is no clear reference to additional resources for investigators. See News Analysis: UK sanctions regime review lacks detail on beefing up meagre...
A regulatory regime with fines for a wider range of activities than the government has potentially considered could force Big Tech to take a more active approach to prevention, advocates for reform say. Doing so would mean strengthening the Online Safety Act 2023 ( OSA 2023), in effect from 17 March 2025, and bolstering it with additional laws. The Financial Conduct Authority ( FCA) is already pushing for harsher custodial terms for those promoting unauthorised online financial products. Yet regulatory lawyers contend that maximising expectations under the Act, which captures fraudulent advertising by Big Tech, alongside complementary legislation, would drive platforms to take firmer preventative steps themselves. Mark Williamson, a partner at Clyde & Co LLP, said the government should make clear to Big Tech that fraudulent advertising is treated as seriously as other online safety issues, by setting exacting standards and being willing to...
R ( Glaister and Carr) v Assistant Coroner for North Wales [2025] EWHC 1018 ( Admin) What are the practical implications of this case? This is another reported instance arising from non-malicious breaches of the court embargo relating to the circulation of draft reserved judgments. The decision is useful and instructive, expressly noting that both a court embargo and a journalism embargo operate, and drawing out the significant differences between them for clarity. It also explains why the court embargo matters and makes plain that any infringement of it constitutes a serious issue. The court painstakingly dissects the steps taken by those involved when the confidential, embargoed draft judgment ( CEDJ) was passed on, pinpointing the particular contraventions in order to offer guidance for the future. Finally, the judgment squarely emphasises the importance of what followed the initial...
The revisions signal a broader reset towards 'focus, fairness, and efficiency', highlighting the DOJ’s intention to collaborate with law-abiding companies rather than penalise them indiscriminately. This shift is intended to foster cooperation, not blanket punishment. Galeotti detailed updates across three corporate enforcement frameworks: a simplified voluntary self-disclosure policy; stricter limits on corporate monitorships; new whistleblower priorities linked to national security and financial crime. Each change underscores the DOJ’s ongoing concentration on serious criminal conduct - especially links to cartels and other transnational criminal organisations, state actors, and fraud against Americans - while giving companies clearer incentives and guardrails to navigate enforcement. As Galeotti put it, the mission is to prosecute criminals, not compliant businesses. Effective white-collar work, he noted, depends on focus, fairness, and efficiency - principles that will guide Criminal Division prosecutors going...
In this issue: Cross border criminal investigations Criminal procedure and evidence Sentencing Bribery, corruption, sanctions and export controls Environmental offences Financial services and pensions offences Food safety and hygiene offences Health and safety and corporate manslaughter offences Local authority prosecutions Money laundering Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers New Q& As Useful information Cross border criminal investigations The limits of double criminality in the Supreme Court Case of El- Khouri v Government of the United States In this matter, the Supreme Court examined section 137 of the Extradition Act 2003 ( EA 2003) and the double criminality requirement, assessing whether the conduct allegedly attributed to the requested individual amounts to an extradition offence. During that analysis, the court reviewed and...
Background The narrative in Santander UK Plc v CCP Graduate School Ltd [2025] EWHC 667 ( KB) is a textbook example of APP fraud. CCP moved just under £416,000 from its Nat West Bank Plc account to an account at Santander. It asserted that it had fallen prey to an APP fraud, whereby payers are duped into approving transfers to an impostor’s account masquerading as a genuine beneficiary. During September and October 2016, CCP executed 15 transfers from its account to a Santander account in the name of PGW Consultants Ltd, believing PGW to be an authentic recipient. Each payment was sent in line with directions supplied to CCP by the fraudsters. After the monies landed in the Santander account, the fraudsters then swept the funds out. In its defence, Santander explained that, after PGW made a further transfer to an account at Lloyds Bank Plc,...
Aged 52, Oghenochuko Ojiri admitted offences of terrorist financing, which prosecutors said were connected to eight sales, in all, of artistic works, together worth a total sum of £140,000, made to an alleged Hezbollah financier, Nazem Ahmad. Prosecution counsel Lyndon Harris of 6KBW College Hill told Westminster Magistrates' Court in London that Ojiri was aware at the time of the sales that Ahmad had been sanctioned by the US government......
What are the key changes in the new guidelines and what prompted these changes? The Guideline emerged after a public consultation held from 29 November 2023 to 21 February 2024. During that process, the Justice Committee ( Commons Select Committee) of the former government observed that, overall, the proposed updates amounted to a worthwhile and carefully considered suite of amendments. In their view, these would prompt sentencers to weigh up whether an immediate prison sentence or a community order would better achieve the aims of sentencing in each instance... According to the Sentencing Council, the revised Guideline now places increased emphasis on the vital contribution of pre-sentence reports ( PSRs) to sentencing decisions. It also sets out further detail on the purpose and breadth of the requirements that courts may attach to community orders and suspended sentence orders......
Fraud Track 2025 BDO Global’s Fraud Track 2025 reports that £337m is recorded as having been laundered between December 2023 and November 2024, though the real total is probably higher. Money laundering from criminal proceeds made up 61% of the overall reported value of fraud and economic crime. Non-corporate fraud, covering phishing scams and identity theft, followed next, contributing around 20%. The study also notes that the value of reported fraud and economic crime in the UK remains on a long-term downward trajectory, dropping 76% to £550m over the previous twelve months, down from £2.3bn in 2023. BDO attributed this reduction to a decrease in instances of high-value fraud. Stephen Peters, a partner at BDO and its head of investigations, said in a statement that the data indicates fraud continues to evolve......
In this issue: Proceeds of crime Sentencing Bribery, corruption, sanctions and export controls Environmental offences Financial services and pensions offences Food safety and hygiene offences Fraud, forgery, tax and theft offences Health and safety and corporate manslaughter offences Money laundering International Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information Proceeds of crime Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 ( References to Financial Investigators) ( England and Wales and Northern Ireland) ( Amendment) Order 2025, SI 2025/537: This instrument updates the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 ( References to Financial Investigators) ( England and Wales and Northern Ireland) Order 2021 ( SI 2021/640). The changes apply from 27 May...
In late March 2025, the UK Supreme Court considered the appeals of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo. The Libor and Euribor prosecutions emerged after the 2008 financial crisis, with the pair frequently cast by the media as symbols of a high-risk culture blamed for precipitating the collapse. Hayes, handed an 11-year custodial sentence, was labelled in court as ‘motivated by greed’. Yet did their conduct constitute a criminal offence? Although investigations and prosecutions unfolded across the globe — in France, the US, Japan, Canada, Germany and Singapore — only the UK has sustained convictions. Here, the men were prosecuted for conspiracy to defraud, a common law crime seemingly without a direct analogue in those other jurisdictions that scrutinised the same behaviour. The Libor litigation has reignited arguments about whether the offence is too expansive and should be abolished. These cases also pose...
For decades, the United States fronted these efforts through prosecutions brought under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ( FCPA). On 10 February 2025, however, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order No 14209, halting FCPA enforcement. During this suspension, the US Department of Justice ( DOJ) intends to re-evaluate enforcement strategies, and likely endorse a new course that may dilute future US prosecutions in the United States. That step will inevitably leave a gap requiring attention by the international community. Given the increasingly cross-border character of FCPA cases, and the tested detection and enforcement frameworks backed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ( OECD) over many years, liberal democracies worldwide are well placed to occupy that space with credible, co-ordinated action. They could pursue a kind of ‘ Reverse Marshall Plan’, stepping forward to lead the rollout of a robust...
Enhance When unveiling the Review, OFSI led with the headline, ‘ UK sanctions freeze £25bn of Russian assets’, adding that ‘over £25 billion of Russian assets [has been] reported frozen since Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine’. That total derives from OFSI’s Russian Frozen Assets In‑ Year Reporting, which records the most recent known value of frozen assets said to be held at the moment of designation, as reported to the authority by those required to make such notifications. By December 2024, £25bn in assets linked to the Russia regime had been notified to OFSI as frozen since February 2022. In 2023, frozen funds reported to OFSI across every sanctions regime came to £24.5bn, with £10bn attributable to the Russia regime. The updated number appears in OFSI’s latest Annual Frozen Asset Review, which obliges anyone holding or controlling assets frozen under UK financial...
In this issue Decision to prosecute and alternatives to prosecution Criminal procedure and evidence Appeal and judicial review Bribery, corruption, sanctions and export controls Consumer protection and cartels Environmental offences Financial services and pensions offences Fraud, forgery, tax and theft offences Health and safety and corporate manslaughter offences Local authority prosecutions International Daily and weekly news alerts Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information Decision to prosecute and alternatives to prosecution Fess up, or wait and see? SFO policy shift stirs DPA debate The Serious Fraud Office ( SFO) has issued fresh guidance confirming that companies which self-report misconduct and fully co-operate can expect to pursue a Deferred Prosecution Agreement ( DPA) instead of prosecution. It launches a secure self-reporting portal and sets firm timelines for SFO...
Senior managers at financial firms identified in corporate self-reports to the Serious Fraud Office ( SFO) are set to come under Financial Conduct Authority ( FCA) scrutiny for any regulatory failings found, lawyers cautioned. They said probes will rely on material provided by the companies themselves, submitted in their own interests. The SFO will pass these disclosures to the financial regulator. The new offence sits within the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 ( ECCTA 2023). Under ECCTA 2023, large corporates will be liable where an employee or agent commits fraud for the organisation’s benefit and adequate prevention measures were absent. The regime targets businesses only, not individuals. FCA investigations boost We expect an increase in FCA enforcement, particularly against senior managers who breach duties under the ‘failure to prevent’ offence, drawing on what firms report to the SFO, said Jennifer...
At a fintech event on 29 April 2025, Finance Minister Rachel Reeves unveiled new legislation, saying it would make the UK a leading destination for digital asset businesses to invest and innovate. A Treasury statement explained that, under the fresh rules, crypto exchanges, brokers and intermediaries will be brought within the regulatory perimeter—clamping down on bad actors while nurturing legitimate innovation. The Treasury added that crypto companies with UK customers must also meet clear benchmarks for transparency, consumer protection and operational resilience—just as firms in conventional finance do. Reeves further noted that the UK will use the forthcoming UK– US financial regulatory working group to continue engagement with US counterparts, aiming to enable stronger collaboration on digital securities between the two countries......
Background On 15 March 2023, following a judge-alone trial, the appellant was convicted of a single offence of collecting or creating a record of information liable to be useful to a terrorist, contrary to section 58(1)(a) of the Terrorism Act 2000 ( TA 2000). She was thereafter sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. The Crown’s case was that the impugned material consisted of a series of handwritten notes produced by the appellant, arranged in a coded fashion to deliberately obscure their meaning and thereby enhance their effectiveness. The material concerned the recovery of both munitions and explosives from Kevin Nolan and the related surveillance operations undertaken by MI5, and was said to be capable of providing practical assistance to terrorists when deciding where future munitions or explosives should be stored, which individuals ought to be selected for that role, whether any person had...
The white-collar watchdog’s revised stance, allowing firms to sidestep charges save in ‘exceptional’ cases when they flag suspected economic wrongdoing, could nudge boardrooms towards deferred prosecution agreements ( DPAs) rather than gambling at trial. ‘ This guidance could usher in a fresh phase of corporate self-reporting and DPAs,’ said Louise Hodges, head of criminal litigation at Kingsley Napley LLP. Previously, the SFO’s approach offered no assurance that businesses would escape prosecution if they owned up. But SFO director Nick Ephgrave told white-collar defence practitioners in a 24 April 2025 speech that, for the first time, companies would know exactly what they are entering into: no ifs, no buts, no maybes; as close to a cast-iron promise as possible—work with us and we will work with you. Eye-catching as the pledge is, the real shift is the office’s vow to reply to...
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When evaluating a general damages claim, the practitioner ought initially to refer to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG)...
This Practice Note This Practice Note reviews mechanisms used in settling litigation. A Tomlin order consists of a consent order paired with a schedule. It operates to stay proceedings on terms that have been agreed. The provisions contained in the schedule may remain confidential. This Practice Note describes the scope of confidentiality attaching to the schedule and sets out how it differs from a standard consent order. Sample wording for a Tomlin order is included, alongside links to precedents, as well as guidance on court approval. It also addresses varying, setting aside and enforcing a Tomlin order, including the considerations the court will take into account when handling applications for each. Further guidance is provided on interpreting and applying the relevant provisions of the CPR; however, some courts and divisions impose very specific requirements for both drafting and approval, and for approaching the schedule and confidentiality issues. Accordingly, you must consider the particular rules and court guide provisions in the forum where your claim is proceeding when drawing up the Tomlin order...
Date [ date ] Parties [ name of Landlord ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Landlord) [ name of Tenant ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Tenant) [ [ name of Guarantor ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Guarantor) ] [ [ name of Mortgagee ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Mortgagee) ] Definitions Within this Deed, the terms below shall be interpreted as follows: [ Annual Rent • the annual sum reserved under the Lease; ] [ Insurance Rent • the Tenant’s share of the Landlord’s costs of insuring the Property (as set out in the Lease); ] Lease • the lease of the Property dated [ date ], entered into between (1) [ the Landlord OR [ name ...
I, [ name ], of [ address ], solemnly and sincerely state that: [ Matters to be verified, set out in numbered paragraphs ] I make this solemn statement in good conscience, believing it to be true, and pursuant to the provisions of the Statutory Declarations Act 1835. DECLARED at [ details ] this [ day ] day of [ month and year ] Before me ................................................................................ [ signature of the person before whom the declaration is made ] A [ commissioner for oaths OR [ solicitor OR [ insert other qualification ] ] authorised to administer oaths ]...
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