Economic Crime Bill: further ‘failure to prevent’ offences proposed

Various additional amendments to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill have been put forward for consideration at Lords Committee Stage, including a number of new clauses to introduce ‘failure to prevent’ offences. The latest amendments put forward by Lord Garnier would create new corporate offences of the failure to prevent economic crime, criminal financial offences, fraud and sanctions evasion, with direct criminal liability introduced for individual company officers whose actions knowingly result in an offence being committed. Lord Johnson of Lainston formally represents the government in the Lords for the purposes of the Bill and has already proposed a number of amendments in other areas, but nothing as of yet on the failure to prevent offences.