The new corporate offence, coming into force on 1st September 2025, will hold organisations accountable for fraud committed by their employees, agents, subsidiaries or other ‘associated persons’ who provide services for or on behalf of the organisation. Importantly, it does not have to be proved that the organisation actually did benefit, nor that the organisation’s senior executives or directors ordered, or knew about, the fraud.
There is a limited statutory defence, which would require an organisation to prove that it has reasonable procedures in place to prevent fraud, or if it can demonstrate to the satisfaction of a court that it was not reasonable in all the circumstances to expect it to have any prevention procedures in place. Are you well prepared?
