The last 15 years have witnessed a fundamental shift in the law’s approach towards the imposition of criminal responsibility where companies and their directors have become involved in the commission of financial crime.
Historically, the law favoured a reactive approach, penalising a company where a director, as directing mind and will of the company, engaged in criminal activity. Today, a more proactive approach is preferred, whereby a company is held criminally liable unless it can show that adequate procedures to prevent the offending conduct had been instituted.
There are three such offences involving bribery (s 7, Bribery Act 2010), facilitating tax evasion offences (ss 45 and 46, Criminal Finances Act 2017), and failing to prevent fraud (s 199, Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023). Although the fact that criminal activity occurred does not necessarily mean that preventative measures taken were inadequate, the burden of proof rests on the company to
