The countdown to failure to prevent fraud is on (Part 1): A recap on corporate criminal liability

Published on 17 July 2025

From 1 September 2025, the new failure to prevent fraud offence will come into effect under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA). Statutory guidance from the Home Office sets out the framework that large organisations should implement by September 2025, to ensure they have in place reasonable fraud prevention procedures.

In this three-part special of RPC's Taxing Matters podcast, RPC's Tom Jenkins, Of Counsel and Financial Crime specialist joins Alexis Armitage, RPC's Taxing Matters podcast host to discuss the new offence and its potential impact on businesses, and other developments relevant to the law of corporate criminal liability.

Part 1: A recap on corporate criminal liability

In part 1, Alexis and Tom look at how the law around corporate criminal liability is changing and discuss:

  • the historic “identification doctrine” and its limitations for law enforcement bodies when seeking to prosecute companies
  • key criticisms of the old law and why reform was needed
  • the major changes introduced by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, including the new legal test for attributing criminal liability to companies
  • what counts as a “senior manager” under that new test and which offences are in scope
  • steps organisations should consider in response to this important change in the law.

Listen to the episode here

Coming soon

Stay tuned for our next episodes as we take a more in depth look at the new failure to prevent fraud offence, and consider the future of corporate criminal liability.

  • Part 2: What is failure to prevent fraud? | Thursday 24 July
  • Part 3: Looking ahead: further developments for corporate criminal liability | Thursday 31 July

All information is correct at the time of recording. Taxing Matters is not a substitute for legal advice.

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