Legal News

The insurer stated that some dishonest claimants are seeking to overstate the effects of injuries excluded from a new fixed damages tariff, in a bid to secure higher pay-outs. Allianz noted this behaviour is among the drivers behind increasing fraud levels. It reported the value of fraud it prevented climbed to £92.6m in the first half of the year—a 34% rise on the £68.9m recorded in the same period in 2024. The split between so-called tariff and non-tariff injuries within a single claim stems from a landmark UK Supreme Court judgment in March 2024. The consequence of that decision still runs through combined injury claims......

R v Kurtaj [2025] EWCA Crim 1163 What are the practical implications of this case? This decision is essential reading for practitioners representing defendants found unfit to plead. The sole avenue of appeal for an accused in that position is through the representatives appointed by the Crown Court under the Criminal Procedure Rules 2020, SI 2020/759, r 25.10(3), to act in the substantive proceedings. A person who is unfit cannot begin or pursue an appeal in their own name, and they are unable to instruct new legal representatives. If a single judge refuses leave to appeal, the Crown Court–appointed team has authority, where counsel considers it appropriate, to renew the application before the full court; no fresh appointment is required. Should the full court grant leave, it will usually order payment from central funds to meet counsel’s fee on any ground for which leave is...

International sanctions regimes Sanctions frameworks work best when states act in unison to penalise offenders and when companies intensify their compliance efforts. Yet each nation’s regime develops on its own, making divergence between systems unavoidable. This stems from sanctions serving as instruments of foreign policy, shaped by varied legal architectures, languages and, above all, the political and policy choices of sovereign governments and their institutions. There are many instances where US, EU and UK measures have aligned, split and shifted—sometimes separately, sometimes in co-ordinated fashion—at pivotal moments. These shifts bear on live cross-border disputes and on global businesses throughout the supply chain, impacting suppliers, clients and end users alike. This news analysis offers a concise overview of the distinct regimes, with a particular emphasis on measures targeting Russia. It examines key points of divergence and what they mean for companies and...

The Public Office ( Accountability) Bill The Public Office ( Accountability) Bill, brought before Parliament by Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy on 15 September 2025, would impose a statutory obligation on public officials to co-operate candidly and comprehensively with inquests and inquiries into fatal incidents and major scandals. Its measures would place a duty on public bodies to be truthful, requiring officials to hand over information and evidence even where doing so may not serve their own interests. The Bill further creates criminal liability for officials who do not conduct themselves with honesty and integrity at all times, with prosecutions for 'especially egregious breaches' carrying sentences of up to two years in prison. Yet lawyers caution that uncertainties remain over how these provisions will operate in practice. Authorities must step forward with information, but they will still need to examine material,...

In this issue: Scrutinising criminal behaviour, Criminal process and proof, Recovery of criminal property, Appeals and judicial review, Sentencing, Bribery, corruption, sanctions and export controls, Financial services and pensions crimes, Health and safety and corporate manslaughter offences, Local authority prosecutions, Corporate crime in Scotland, Further corporate crime updates, Daily and weekly news alerts, New and revised content, Dates for your diary, Trackers, Useful information. Investigating criminal conduct Mo J introduces Public Office ( Accountability) Bill with new duty of candour for officials The Ministry of Justice ( Mo J) has laid before Parliament the Public Office ( Accountability) Bill. The draft law would impose a new professional and statutory duty of candour on public officials, with criminal penalties for serious breaches. It would provide non-means-tested legal aid to all bereaved families at inquests, create a new criminal offence of misleading the public, and require public bodies’ legal spend at...

The National Security Act 2023 The NSA 2023 received Royal Assent on 11 July 2023. Part 1 introduces new criminal offences, such as espionage ( NSA 2023, ss 1–3), sabotage ( NSA 2023, s 12) and foreign interference ( NSA 2023, ss 13–16), and commenced on 20 December 2023. Part 4, titled ‘ Foreign activities and foreign influence registration scheme’, came into effect on 1 July 2025 via the National Security Act 2023 ( Foreign Activities and Foreign Influence Registration Scheme: Publication) Regulations 2025, SI 2025/675, and the National Security Act 2023 ( Foreign Activities and Foreign Influence Registration Scheme: Information and Disclosure) Regulations 2025, SI 2025/408. The Foreign Influence Registration Scheme FIRS aims to improve openness regarding foreign influence in UK politics, and to deliver greater confidence about the actions of foreign powers that present the highest risk to the UK. FIRS obliges...

Two decades have passed since the Criminal Procedure Rules were first brought in to simplify, codify and clarify criminal procedure. In 2009, the then Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales, Lord Justice Leveson, stressed that everyone involved in criminal cases — including Magistrates, District Judges and Justices’ Clerks — must adhere to and apply the Criminal Procedure Rules. They are not simply guidance; compliance is obligatory. The term ‘must’ in the Rules means precisely that. That remains the position today. What are the key changes? The main revisions to Crim PR 2020, SI 2020/759, made by Crim PR 2025, SI 2025/909, capture the nine subsequent sets of amendments to Crim PR 2020 and undertake wider housekeeping: removing the glossary from Crim PR 2025, updating cross references within the rules, promoting consistent wording, and renumbering earlier provisions. These steps are intended to make Crim PR 2025 more...

In this issue: Cross border criminal investigations Criminal procedure and evidence Proceeds of crime Bribery, corruption, sanctions and export controls Cybercrime and data protection offences Environmental offences Financial services and pensions offences Fraud, forgery, tax and theft offences Insolvency Local authority prosecutions Money laundering Corporate Crime in Scotland Other corporate crime and crime related news Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information Cross border criminal investigations Companies should act as corporate enforcement develops. In late June 2025, SFO Director Nick Ephgrave met with Matthew Galeotti, head of the criminal division at the US Department of Justice ( DOJ), and both reiterated a pledge to work together on prominent transnational investigations. Hayley Lund, partner, and Frankie Cowl, counsel, at Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, consider the UK’s shifting corporate enforcement landscape. See News Analysis: Companies must take action as corporate enforcement evolves. Criminal procedure and...

A digest of recent trading standards cases, featuring a retailer prosecuted for supplying fireworks to a child, included here Firms/persons prosecuted: Yasir Mukhtar Choudry Background: After reports that fireworks were being sold to minors, a 16-year-old volunteer carried out a test buy at Bang Fireworks, Bradford......

In this issue: Corporate Crime cases to watch in the second half of 2025 Decision to prosecute and alternatives to prosecution Sentencing Bribery, corruption, sanctions and export controls Consumer protection and cartels Environmental offences Financial services and pensions offences Fraud, forgery, tax and theft offences Insolvency offences and Companies Act offences Money laundering Corporate Crime in Scotland Lex Talk®Corporate Crime: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information Corporate Crime cases to watch in the second half of 2025 Leading corporate crime matters for the remainder of 2025 centre on the Serious Fraud Office’s intensified pursuit of illicit funds. Two actions underway could set the boundaries for when the agency may seize money suspected to be the...

The meeting followed closely after the DOJ released its new white-collar enforcement strategy in May 2025 and, in June 2025, respectively, its guidance on enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ( FCPA), underscoring the SFO’s revitalised drive for assertive corporate enforcement. That direction has been evident since Ephgrave assumed leadership of the SFO in September 2023, publicly pledging to accelerate investigations, and to cultivate influence and leverage through partnerships at home and abroad. Although the SFO and DOJ have long co-operated, the DOJ’s pronouncement suggests a further, welcome step towards Ephgrave’s aim for the SFO to become the preferred, default collaborator in practice. The manual explicitly envisages bringing in suitable foreign law enforcement bodies, including the SFO, at an early stage in investigations and matters touching US interests, where relevant. It instructs that, prior to opening a fresh FCPA case, US...

The Insolvency Service Situated within the Department for Business and Trade, the Insolvency Service is tasked, among other things, with: overseeing bankruptcies and debt relief orders; managing company liquidations; investigating related financial misconduct and director misconduct; enforcing company and insolvency law across the UK. The transfer of functions from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in 2017 made the Insolvency Service a prosecuting authority in its own right. The Strategy underlines its role as a prosecuting agency, with a core focus on strengthening investigation and enforcement by intensifying enforcement of the Companies Act, and building the capacity and capability to investigate and take action against companies and directors......

What prompted the update to the Joint SFO- CPS Corporate Prosecution Guidance? The Joint SFO- CPS Corporate Prosecution Guidance has been revised to reflect the shifting corporate crime landscape under the ECCTA 2023. Since the 2021 guidance, two major reforms have redefined corporate liability for economic crime. First, the failure to prevent fraud ( FTPF) offence, taking effect on 1 September 2025, imposes strict liability on large organisations where an associated person commits fraud intending to benefit the organisation or its clients. The revision provides prosecutors with clear direction ahead of the new offence. Both the Serious Fraud Office ( SFO) and the Crown Prosecution Service ( CPS) have indicated they will deploy this provision promptly and with vigour. SFO Director Nick Ephgrave has publicly expressed his wish to secure the first prosecution under the ECCTA 2023, emphasising that companies ‘must get their house in...

Hannah von Dadelszen, who heads fraud and economic crime at the Crown Prosecution Service ( CPS), stated the organisation intends to unveil a five-year strategy tackling serious economic and organised crime by late 2025. She described the proposals as 'ambitious', predicting they would expand the CPS’s influence worldwide. Von Dadelszen added the strategy would serve as a 'route map' for prosecuting economic crime cases......

Since the failure to prevent fraud offence took effect on the first day of September 2025, there has been sustained debate about the compliance hurdles it will create for businesses and its likely impact on curbing corporate fraud. The offence, set out in section 199 of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 ( ECCTA 2023), seeks to make large organisations answerable for fraud carried out by employees, agents, subsidiaries, or others who deliver services for or on the organisation’s behalf; where the conduct was intended to benefit the organisation or its clients. It encompasses various specified predicate fraud offences, as well as aiding, abetting, counselling, or procuring the commission of those offences. Illustrative examples include misleading sales tactics, concealing material information from consumers or investors, and dishonest behaviour in financial markets. The offence only applies where there is a UK...

Emma Luxton, the SFO’s director of operations, warned that businesses that duplicate reports of the same misconduct to the office and to other white-collar enforcement bodies around the globe risk being treated as uncooperative under its refreshed guidance on corporate deferred prosecution agreements ( DPAs). Addressing an economic crime conference in Cambridge, Luxton noted that the SFO’s advice on how companies can avoid prosecution and reach a corporate resolution brands forum-shopping as the antithesis of genuine cooperation. She added: the SFO will regard behaviour as uncooperative where a company, for tactical purposes, makes an unreasonable report of offending to a different jurisdiction......

The UK's new offence of failure to prevent fraud comes into force on 1 September 2025. Large organisations could be held liable where employees, or others connected to the business, commit criminal conduct to benefit the company. Created by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 ( ECCTA 2023), the offence is touted as a tool to spark a shift in corporate culture. The intention is to push firms to tighten their procedures so the UK’s enforcers can more effectively police fraud in Britain. The Serious Fraud Office ( SFO) and the Crown Prosecution Service ( CPS) have adopted tough language, vowing to pursue companies that fail to comply. Yet lawyers do not anticipate a flood of prosecutions or corporate plea agreements, and any that do arise are expected to take years to materialise. ‘ For most in-scope companies, the house isn’t on fire,’ said Lloyd...

From 1 September 2025, the ECCTA 2023 will have further implications for managers when the failure to prevent fraud ( FTPF) offence comes into force. Managers must be able to evidence that they understand and have assessed how the ECCTA 2023’s FTPF provisions affect their businesses and compliance arrangements. They should demonstrate that they have taken account of the government’s FTPF guidance, issued in November 2024 (see: Home Office announces implementation of corporate 'failure to prevent fraud' offence, LNB News 01/09/2025 9). They will also need to evaluate the impact of the FTPF provisions on current and planned fund investments, including stakes in portfolio companies and ties with service providers, such as placement agents, who help bring investors into the funds. For managers with contractual and regulatory obligations to exercise due skill, care and diligence to prevent loss to the assets they...

SFO powers to claw back dirty cash to be tested Two matters pencilled in for late 2025 could clarify, by way of precedent, when and in what situations the SFO may confiscate funds suspected to be the proceeds of crime. The first, listed for September 2025, concerns an appeal against an account forfeiture order made by Westminster Magistrates’ Court in 2023 for upwards of £7m. The order targets Mario Ildeu de Miranda, a one-time Petrobras executive at the Brazilian-owned oil group. The SFO was originally authorised to take the money from de Miranda following his conviction in Brazil for involvement in a bribery scheme linked to the energy major. This cash seizure represents the largest sum the SFO has ever obtained from a single bank account. It followed a painstaking agency inquiry tracking the funds within Brazil’s “ Operation Car Wash”. De Miranda is...

What is the purpose of PRMA 2025? PRMA 2025 obtained Royal Assent on 21 July 2025 and, apart from PRMA 2025, s 11(1) and (3), took effect that same day. As enabling legislation, it empowers the Secretary of State to make regulations to manage a wide spectrum of product safety risks and associated matters. On 22 July 2025, the Office of Product Safety and Standards (‘ OPSS’) issued a companion Code of Conduct that explains how government will exercise the powers granted under PRMA 2025. Why has PRMA 2025 been introduced? For years the UK’s product safety regime was shaped strongly by EU legislation. In the wake of Brexit, there was an increasing need for a distinct UK framework capable of evolving independently. At the same time, new hazards have appeared that the previous laws were not designed to deal with, including unsafe goods sold via online...