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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 Sole traders, informal partnerships and outdated partnership deeds are common.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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R v Hayes; R v Palombo [2025] UKSC 29 What are the practical implications of this case? The judgment is poised to have significant consequences for the safety of convictions of other traders found guilty of comparable offences said to stem from alleged LIBOR/ EURIBOR benchmark manipulation; nonetheless, it is improbable that the same problems will recur in forthcoming cases, and all LIBOR settings ended in 2024 (though EURIBOR remains in operation). It also offers several helpful reminders for criminal practitioners: Criminal trials must preserve a clear line between issues of fact and issues of law; questions of honesty or sincerely held belief are matters of fact for the jury to determine. The judgment criticises aspects of the indictments and stresses that prosecutors must supply sufficient particulars so that both the defence and the trial judge can grasp, clearly and precisely, the nature of the...
Following its creation in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 ( ECCTA 2023), the failure to prevent fraud offence is scheduled to take effect on 1 September 2025. Under ECCTA 2023, s 199, large organisations can be made answerable for fraudulent conduct by employees, agents, subsidiaries, or others providing services for, or on behalf of, the organisation, where the wrongdoing was intended to benefit the organisation or its clients. For a case to proceed, at least one element of the underlying fraud must have occurred in the UK, or the gain or loss arising from it must have been realised in the UK. Businesses do, however, have a potential defence, as set out in the government’s guidance on the offence. Reasonable procedure In November 2024, the government issued guidance describing the reasonable procedures that companies should adopt if they are to stand a chance of...
Concealed within those measures sits section 196 of the Bill, ushering in a far‑reaching broadening of the identification doctrine so that corporate employers are answerable for any offence committed by a senior manager acting under their actual or ostensible authority, in effect. This proposed, radical uplift in organisational liability for employee conduct conspicuously omits several common‑sense protections long seen and applied in other jurisdictions. As presently framed, the legislation indeed risks producing counter‑intuitive results that the Bill’s architects can hardly have intended or envisaged. A modest handful of straightforward, pragmatic tweaks would sharpen the drafting and impose a sensible, workable limiting principle on what is otherwise a major enlargement of the identification doctrine. Identification doctrine expanded Section 196 of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 ( ECCTA 2023) extends the identification doctrine to make companies criminally responsible for specified economic offences...
A UK accountancy practice’s imminent prosecution for failing to stop tax evasion has thrown a spotlight on the country’s weak track record on enforcement, across this area of compliance, though the proceedings may galvanise a renewed push. Bennett Verby, which operates in northern England, is due to stand trial in September 2027, marking the first corporate case for failing to prevent tax evasion since the offence reached the statute book eight years ago. HMRC, the UK tax authority, has recently charged Bennett Verby with failing to prevent the facilitation of UK tax evasion under section 45 of the Criminal Finances Act 2017. Company representatives appeared before a Manchester court earlier this month. No plea has been entered yet, but the firm will reportedly contest the claims. The failure to prevent tax evasion offence was enacted with fanfare eight years ago, in the wake of the 2016...
The failure to prevent fraud offence Introduced by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 ( ECCTA 2023) as part of wider efforts to combat financial crime, the failure to prevent fraud offence takes effect on 1 September 2025 and is intended to drive a meaningful, positive shift in corporate culture. This is the latest in the suite of corporate “failure to prevent” offences, following the failure to prevent bribery under the Bribery Act 2010 ( BA 2010) and the failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion in the Criminal Finances Act 2017. The offence is contained in ECCTA 2023, ss 199–206. Its purpose is to ensure large organisations are accountable for fraud carried out by employees, agents, subsidiaries, or others who provide services for or on behalf of the organisation, where the conduct was intended to benefit the...
In this issue: Decision to prosecute and alternatives to prosecution Criminal procedure and evidence Bribery, corruption, sanctions and export controls Cybercrime and data protection offences Environmental offences Financial services and pensions offences Fraud, forgery, tax and theft offences Health and safety and corporate manslaughter offences Insolvency offences and Companies Act offences Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information Decision to prosecute and alternatives to prosecution SFO and CPS update joint corporate prosecution guidance The Serious Fraud Office ( SFO) and Crown Prosecution Service ( CPS) have released revised joint guidance on prosecuting corporates, updating their previous publication. It sets out the shared stance of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the SFO Director on bringing corporate offences in England and Wales. This refresh anticipates the corporate failure to prevent fraud offence in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 ( ECCTA 2023), commencing on 1 September 2025, which will hold large...
How is the Insolvency Service changing? Dave Magrath, the Insolvency Service’s director of investigation and enforcement services, is guiding the agency into an expanded role set out in its new strategy to intensify investigations and enforcement. The plan features the hiring of 250 staff to support the Insolvency Service’s widening remit. That remit now reaches into prosecuting a broader array of economic crime offences against both individuals and companies. This expansion, revealed in July 2025, follows the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, which introduced over 100 additional offences the service can prosecute under the Companies Act 2006. The agency has also received extra funding to shoulder greater responsibilities. In 2024, the Insolvency Service has helped secure convictions for 77 individuals, disqualified around 1,000 directors, and wound up 41 companies. The government has recently transferred enforcement of coronavirus ( COVID-19) loan scheme cases to the...
HMRC has charged a tax accountancy firm with the failure to prevent tax evasion in connection with an alleged fraud involving research and development repayments HMRC has brought a case against a tax accountancy practice, alleging failure to prevent tax evasion linked to purported research and development repayment fraud. It marks the first occasion the authority has hauled a company before the courts over whether its tax evasion compliance programmes were adequate. Alongside the corporate action, six individuals have also been charged, among them a former director of the firm. After criticism from lawmakers about limited enforcement, HMRC has deployed the offence, signalling a willingness to test the law in court rather than depend on its deterrent effect, according to Reuben Vandercruyssen of Hogan Lovells LLP. He said the matter indicates a tougher stance on financial crime, with HMRC opting to pursue...
District Judge Louisa Ciecióra At Westminster magistrates’ court in London, District Judge Louisa Ciecióra handed Aozma Sultana, 42, a ten-week jail term, suspended for a year. Sultana breached counter-terrorism rules by failing to supply information to the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation ( OFSI). After a trial in July 2025, she was found guilty of one count of refusing or failing to comply with a request for information under the Counter- Terrorism ( Sanctions) ( EU Exit) Regulations 2019, SI 2019/577, reg 23. The charity head, Judge Ciecióra concluded, had not put forward ‘evidence of reasonable excuse’ for missing the June 2024 deadline. The judge described the conduct as deliberate and, consistent with her findings at trial, observed that Sultana was asked for the material multiple times and repeatedly did not provide it......
How have plans for UK data protection reform evolved since Brexit? Since Brexit, the UK’s approach to data protection reform has ebbed and flowed markedly, with successive governments seeking to carefully balance innovation, economic growth and individuals’ rights. The Conservative government aimed to pivot to a GDPR ( General Data Protection Regulation) lite regime by introducing the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill. That bill outlined a series of business‑friendly amendments to existing data protection rules and progressed reasonably well through parliament, only to be ultimately shelved following a change of government in 2024. Once in office, the Labour‑led administration reignited the agenda, bringing forward the Data ( Use and Access) Bill ( DUAB). While retaining the core UK GDPR framework, DUAB set out targeted reforms that indicate a shift towards a more UK‑specific regime centred on data‑driven innovation, enhanced public services and strong data...
In this issue Corporate crime related cases for the first half of 2025 Bribery, corruption, sanctions and export restrictions Consumer protection and cartels Environmental offences Offences in financial services and pensions Food safety and hygiene breaches Fraud, forgery, tax and theft 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 Useful information Corporate crime related cases for the first half of 2025 The biggest UK white collar cases of 2025—midyear report Highlights include James ‘ Jes’ Staley’s unsuccessful legal fight regarding his connections to Jeffrey Epstein, the first conviction achieved by Britain’s sanctions enforcer, and Tom Hayes’ Supreme Court success. For full coverage, see News Analysis: The biggest UK white collar cases of...
The Bar Council has called for an 'urgent and comprehensive' probe into software errors that might have affected the outcome of cases, which were revealed by a leaked HM Courts and Tribunals Service ( HMCTS) report. The BBC initially revealed the claims. According to the broadcaster, HMCTS conducted an internal inquiry, analysing a three-month sample of Social Security and Child Support Tribunal cases after software faults were uncovered, despite signs the flaw might have been present for years. Barbara Mills KC, who chairs the Bar Council, said they were alarmed at reports that the bug could have produced miscarriages of justice. She urged a swift and thorough investigation to determine any effect on case outcomes, and in particular whether emergency child protection cases have been affected. She added that this is the latest in a string of problems with the courts’ IT systems, which appear to...
What is the background to this consultation? OFSI, a unit within HM Treasury, is tasked with making sure the UK’s financial sanctions are understood, put into practice, and enforced. On 22 July 2025 it launched a consultation seeking views on proposed adjustments to the civil enforcement process for financial sanctions. These proposals follow mounting criticism of how the UK enforces sanctions. Spotlight on Corruption’s report last year, All Bark and No Bite, contended that weak enforcement undermines the UK’s efforts against economic crime. Moreover, at a Commons Foreign Affairs Committee session in November last year, Giles Thompson, OFSI’s head, accepted the need for more robust enforcement. The consultation paper itself notes that the impetus includes recognition that OFSI could make enforcement processes clearer and more transparent, and make resolving enforcement cases quicker and easier. That backdrop informs the current...
Elsewhere, the UK Supreme Court granted administrators fresh powers to recover proceeds from fraud. In a separate ruling, the court limited the remit and reach of the US Department of Justice ( DOJ). Here, Law360 unpacks the biggest corporate crime and civil fraud cases of the past year in detail. UK Supreme Court overturns traders' rate-rigging convictions In July 2025, the UK Supreme Court set aside the criminal convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, years after the traders were found guilty of conspiring to manipulate the benchmark interest rates Libor and Euribor. The justices unanimously quashed the former City traders’ convictions after deciding that serious procedural errors by the presiding judges in their trials years earlier had rendered the verdicts unsafe. The landmark ruling follows high-profile legal challenges over several years in which the men argued they were scapegoated amid public anger over banker...
Watson Farley On 5 August 2025, Watson Farley observed that the push to appeal to ESG‑aware investors and consumers has given companies powerful motives to overstate the genuine sustainability of their activities. The firm says this trend is drawing increased scrutiny from relevant regulators. The report notes that the need to tackle greenwashing has now hit a new high in 2025. Watson Farley highlighted several recent matters that, it said, demonstrate a step‑up in disputes around greenwashing. As an illustration, it referenced the Competition and Markets Authority ( CMA), which has announced it will commence public enforcement of its green claims code in 2025. The code is intended to stop businesses from issuing environmental assertions that lack evidential support. The CMA can penalise companies that breach the code......
Shvidler v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs; Dalston Projects Ltd and others v Secretary of State for Transport [2025] UKSC 30 What are the practical implications of this case? These proceedings marked the inaugural judicial challenges to measures under the UK’s Russia sanctions framework, dramatically widened before and after Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Practitioners, and their clients, had long awaited the Supreme Court’s ruling to clarify how both the executive and the judiciary should handle such contests. The majority, by affording the executive an exceptionally broad margin of appreciation in decision‑making on foreign policy and national security, has in effect foreclosed any realistic route to contesting individual sanctions on proportionality grounds. Although a number of people have been de‑listed, the FCDO has not issued any policy or guidance explaining its approach to ministerial review...
Company representatives attended Manchester Crown Court on 7 August 2025, after a charge was issued by the UK tax authorities alleging a failure to prevent the facilitation of UK tax evasion, in breach of section 45 of the Criminal Finances Act 2017.......
Companies should take from the FCA’s action that compliance teams need to be empowered to challenge senior leaders and top earners, even when that risks ruffling feathers, according to legal specialists. The FCA’s provisional £5.9m sanction and industry ban imposed on the former fund manager on 5 August 2025 is weighty enough to prompt firms to reassess how much latitude they grant revenue generators. The regulator also issued a £40m penalty to Woodford Investment Management, Woodford’s firm. Both outcomes are provisional, awaiting a final determination by the Upper Tribunal, to which they have referred the FCA’s decision. Restraining star earners “ The key message for firms across the sector is that a superstar culture cannot be permitted to override compliance frameworks designed to protect consumers,” said Karl Foster, a partner at Spencer West LLP. “ FCA principles bind the fund manager at all times, and simply...
The judgment ( R v Hayes; R v Palombo [2025] UKSC 29) offers robust observations censuring the handling of the original trials and highlights worries about deficiencies within the criminal appeal system in England and Wales... Background Hayes and Palombo were found guilty in 2015 and 2019, respectively, of conspiracy to defraud arising from allegations concerning the manipulation of Libor and Euribor. Collectively, they received sentences totalling 15 years. Hayes remained on licence serving his 11-year term until the Supreme Court ruling set it aside. Seven further individuals continue to hold convictions for Libor and Euribor manipulation in the UK, which remains the sole jurisdiction where criminal findings for this behaviour still persist... Calculation of Libor Libor and Euribor functioned as benchmarks for short‑term interest rates, commonly referenced for commercial loan pricing and for determining values of numerous derivative instruments. Libor was derived from daily rate...
The draft guidance sits within the overhauled consumer protection framework brought in by the DMCCA 2024 in the UK, substantial elements of which took effect in April 2025. For the first time, under the DMCCA 2024 the CMA can enforce consumer protection law directly via administrative processes, rather than having to pursue consumer rights through court proceedings. The CMA also holds fresh authority to levy penalties of up to 10% of worldwide turnover for infringements of consumer protection law. The CMA had earlier indicated it intended to publish definitive guidance on price transparency in Autumn 2025 and, until that final guidance is issued, said it will only pursue enforcement against ‘genuinely unexpected and untrailed mandatory charges added on at the end of a purchasing journey’. Why is price transparency important? DMCCA 2024 refreshed the legal framework to shield consumers from unfair trading, including...
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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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