Corporate Crime & Compliance UK

  • June 09, 2025

    Lex Greensill Claims SoftBank Hid Deal With 'Code Of Silence'

    Lex Greensill testified in a $440 million London trial Monday that SoftBank, a Japanese investment company, had designed a restructuring agreement involving his firm to avoid putting potential losses on its accounts in his first public appearance since his eponymous firm's collapse.

  • June 09, 2025

    Ex-Commerzbank Analyst Denies Faking Sex Assault Claims

    A former Commerzbank analyst on Monday fought claims that he lied to a court by making false sexual assault allegations in his failed harassment case against the bank, telling a London court he was being truthful.

  • June 09, 2025

    Six Men Deny Tax Fraud Charges Over Payroll Outsourcing

    Six individuals pleaded not guilty to tax fraud and money laundering charges at a criminal court in London on Monday as part of a sprawling multimillion-pound prosecution brought by HM Revenue and Customs into a payroll outsourcing business.

  • June 07, 2025

    Minister Calls For Bold Action To Tackle Court Backlogs

    The government must take "bold" steps to implement lasting reforms to tackle persistent backlogs in the criminal courts and deteriorating court conditions, a minister warned on Saturday.

  • June 06, 2025

    Chancery Pauses Meta Privacy Suit For EU, Ireland Actions

    A Delaware court on Friday paused a pension fund stockholder suit seeking documents on data privacy violations made by Meta Platforms Inc. that led to a €1.2 billion ($1.4 billion) fine from European authorities.

  • June 06, 2025

    Reality TV Gallery Owner Gets 2½ Years On Terrorism Charges

    An art gallery owner and reality TV art expert was sentenced to over two years' imprisonment at a London criminal court on Friday for failing to report his suspicions when selling around £140,000 ($189,400) worth of art to a suspected terrorist financier.

  • June 06, 2025

    UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

    The past week in London has seen MGM and the owners of the "Addams Family" trademark sue a private equity firm, two Cambridge colleges file for injunctions against Pro-Palestine student protest groups and a former NBA player brings a claim against Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.

  • June 06, 2025

    Poor Productivity Driving Crown Court Backlog, Study Says

    Poor productivity has been a "major factor" in the growth of the Crown Court's case backlog since the COVID-19 pandemic, an economic think tank said in a study published Friday.

  • June 06, 2025

    Darts Champ Banned As Director Over Unpaid £450K Tax Bill

    A former darts world champion has been banned from running companies for five years after his business failed to pay more than £450,000 ($610,000) in tax, the Insolvency Service has revealed.

  • June 06, 2025

    EPPO Searches Portuguese City In Industrial Zone Probe

    The European Public Prosecutor's Office has said it has carried out searches with local police as part of an ongoing fraud and corruption probe into the construction of the industrial zone of a city in northeastern Portugal.

  • June 06, 2025

    Switzerland Plans Tax Data Reporting For Crypto

    The Swiss government said Friday that it has approved a plan to extend the automatic exchange of information for tax matters to apply to crypto-assets.

  • June 06, 2025

    From Russia With Love? UK Lawyers Mull Sanctions U-Turn

    Finance companies are enlisting white-collar lawyers to draw up plans for tapping back into Russia if the U.S. breaks with its Western allies and eases sanctions, although experts warn that unpredictable political winds mean there are as many risks as opportunities.

  • June 05, 2025

    Meta Pressed By MPs Over Slow Removal Of Harmful Content

    A group of influential MPs said Friday that they have written to Meta asking the Facebook-owner to explain its tardy responses to requests by the City watchdog for the removal of harmful content from financial influencers appearing on its platforms.

  • June 05, 2025

    UK Needs Modern Sanctions Rules, Ex-Lord Chancellor Warns

    The U.K.'s sanctions regime is increasingly unfit for its purpose and must be reformed to tackle complex new forms of aggression such as cyberattacks and economic sabotage, the former lord chancellor urged Thursday.

  • June 05, 2025

    HMRC Loses £47M To Phishing Targeting PAYE Accounts

    HM Revenue & Customs has detected phishing attacks on 100,000 taxpayer accounts, costing the revenue service £47 million ($64 million), the tax authority's new chief executive told members of Parliament.

  • June 05, 2025

    Trading Biz Can't Short Circuit Trial Against Former GC

    A London judge said Thursday that a trading services company must go to trial to prove that its former general counsel misused confidential information, citing a possibility that the business abused the lawyer-client relationship.

  • June 05, 2025

    BHP Tries To Block Criminal Contempt Bid In £36B Dam Case

    BHP urged a London judge on Thursday to throw out contempt proceedings that it has called "extraordinary" in a £36 billion ($50 billion) case over Brazil's worst environmental disaster, arguing that it would relitigate issues that had already been resolved.

  • June 05, 2025

    Credit Suisse Says Greensill Deals Left $440M Debt Unpaid

    Greensill Capital coordinated with SoftBank to enter into "improper" transactions which caused Credit Suisse investors to lose $440 million in debt, a lawyer for a sub-fund for the collapsed Swiss bank told the first day of trial Thursday.

  • June 05, 2025

    Oligarch Can't Appeal Tossed $14B Asset-Stripping Claim

    Imprisoned oligarch Ziyavudin Magomedov cannot challenge a decision to dismiss his $14 billion claim against Transneft, Rostatom, a private equity firm and other entities over an alleged Russian state-led conspiracy to strip his assets in two major port operators, a London appeals court has ordered.

  • June 05, 2025

    Ex-Solicitor Charged With Defrauding Clients Out Of £137K

    A former solicitor and part-time judge appeared at a London criminal court on Thursday accused of defrauding more than a dozen clients by appropriating at least £137,000 ($186,000) in payments to himself.

  • June 05, 2025

    JPMorgan Blocks VTB's Russian Case Over Frozen $156M

    JPMorgan won its fight on Thursday to block VTB Bank from bringing a $156 million case in Russia over frozen funds, as a London court ruled that the Russian lender's claims were "vexatious and oppressive."

  • June 05, 2025

    UK Ransomware Ban Could Boost Cost Of Cyber-Insurance

    The cost of buying cyber-insurance for the public sector and critical infrastructure could rise significantly because of a proposed ban on paying ransomware demands, experts warn, as the U.K. government looks at ways to disrupt the income of online criminals.

  • June 04, 2025

    DWF Argues Privacy Claim A Litigation Ploy At Trial

    DWF Law LLP argued at trial Wednesday that a claim by three people that the law firm unlawfully shared their health data was only brought to "secure an advantage" for their lawyers in separate proceedings against insurers.

  • June 04, 2025

    VTB Bank Unit Beats 'Thinnest Possible' Corporate Raid Case

    A British unit of Russian state-owned VTB Bank has beaten claims in a London court that it was part of a Kremlin-approved corporate raid, with a judge ruling that a steel businessman's evidence against the lender was "the thinnest possible gruel."

  • June 04, 2025

    SFO Reveals £21M Spent On Lawyers In ENRC Court Battles

    The Serious Fraud Office has spent more than £21 million ($28 million) on lawyers fighting its legal battle against Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. over the prosecutor's alleged abuse of its authority during an ill-fated criminal probe of the mining giant.

Expert Analysis

  • Applying New FCA Guidance On Control Of Financial Firms

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    Buyers seeking to acquire or increase their stakes in U.K. financial services firms can streamline prudential review of their transactions by understanding the Financial Conduct Authority’s recently published guidance on updated change-in-control regulations, says Mark Chalmers at Davis Polk.

  • How Lawyers Can Work On Unmasking Beneficial Ownership

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    The Solicitors Regulation Authority's recent anti-money laundering report suggests that identifying ultimate beneficial owners in a transaction is one of the key day-to-day challenges that law firms face, and the solution lies in combining know-your-business processes with know-your-client verification, says Sam Ruback at Thirdfort.

  • Anticipating The UK's Top M&A Trends In 2025

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    Conversations with market participants are focusing on five key questions about 2025's transactional markets, ranging from issues of artificial intelligence, to the boom in takeovers and increased regulatory scrutiny, says Layla D’Monte at King & Spalding.

  • Takeaways On Freezing Injunctions After Dos Santos Ruling

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    The Court of Appeal's recent decision in dos Santos v. Unitel moved the needle in favor of applicants for freezing injunctions in two ways, say lawyers at Cooke Young.

  • What To Know About New Art Market Reporting Obligations

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    Recent U.K. sanctions reporting obligations on art market participants and high value dealers come into effect in May 2025, and businesses should review risk assessments and compliance controls to identify areas that may require strengthening, say lawyers at Steptoe.

  • Businesses Should Expect A Role In Tackling Fraud Next Year

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    If one word sums up a key trend in financial crime enforcement in 2024, it would be fraud, as enforcement agencies clamped down on consumer-focused crime — and businesses will need to be prepared to play a part in 2025 with the coming of the "failure to prevent fraud" offense, says Jessica Parker at Corker Binning.

  • What FCA's 2024 Changes Suggest For Enforcement In 2025

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    Though the Financial Conduct Authority is likely to enter 2025 hungry for enforcement wins after fielding intense criticism in 2024 over proposed policy amendments, firms can glean ideas for mitigating their risk from heightened scrutiny by studying the regulator's changing behavior from the year just past, says Imogen Makin at WilmerHale.

  • How The Wirecard Judge Addressed Unreliability Of Memory

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    In a case brought by the administrator of Wirecard against Greybull Capital, High Court Judge Sara Cockerill took a multipronged and thoughtful approach to a common problem with fraudulent misrepresentation claims — how to assess the evidence of what was said at a meeting where recollections differ and where contemporaneous documentation is limited, says Andrew Head at Forsters.

  • Practical Considerations For Private Fund Side Letters

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    Side letters are a common way of formalizing negotiated arrangements between a private fund and a particular investor — and as the number and length of side letters per fundraise steadily climb, managers must consider the material legal risks carefully, say lawyers at Dechert.

  • Planning For UK And EU Crypto-Asset Regulations In 2025

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    Fims should expect to devote the rest of 2024 and much of 2025 to fine-tuning their compliance frameworks to align with European Union crypto-asset regulations taking effect soon and U.K. regulators' plans for updating their own crypto-asset regime in the coming year, says Steven Lightstone at Morgan Lewis.

  • What To Know About Plans For A UK Green Taxonomy

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    Rachel Richardson at Macfarlanes discusses the purpose of HM Treasury’s recent consultation on a U.K. green taxonomy, explains why the tool — which would define what economic activities support climate objectives — is necessary, and considers drafting challenges the U.K. government may face.

  • Key Takeaways From EU's Coming Digital Act

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    The European Union's impending Digital Operational Resilience Act will necessitate closer collaboration on resilience, risk management and compliance, and crucial challenges include ensuring IT third-party service providers meet the requirements on or before January 2025, says Susie MacKenzie at Coralytics.

  • Takeaways From EU's Draft AI Code Of Practice

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    The European Union AI Office’s recently published first draft of the General-Purpose AI Code of Practice sheds some welcome light on which Artificial Intelligence Act compliance issues the office finds particularly knotty and, importantly, acknowledges where further guidance will be necessary, say lawyers at Akin.

  • The Rising Tide Of EU Antitrust Enforcement In Pharma

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    The European Commission’s recent record-breaking €463 million fine of Teva for abusing its dominant position confirms that European Union competition law enforcement in the pharmaceutical sector remains a priority, with infringements drawing serious financial exposure, say lawyers at Cooley.

  • Looking Back On 2024's Competition Law Issues For GenAI

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    With inherent uncertainties in generative artificial intelligence raising antitrust issues that attract competition authorities' attention, the 2024 uptick in transaction reviews demonstrates that regulators are vigilant about the possibility that markets may tip in favor of large existing players, say lawyers at McDermott.

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