Blog
Civil Fraud Quarterly Round-Up: Q2 2020
Mary Young
4 March 2019
SFO v ENRC: what did the Court of Appeal decide and what does it mean for lawyers?
In September 2018, the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment on ENRC’s appeal against Andrews J’s High Court decision in the case of The Director of the Serious Fraud Office v ENRC. The judgment has been praised for going some way to restore sense and order to the protection of legal professional privilege.
15 January 2019
Tackling illicit finance: lawyers under the spotlight
At the end of last year the National Crime Agency published its annual report on Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) for 2018. Media reporting (such as in the FT, subscription required), on the annual report has focussed, amongst other things, on the relatively small proportion of SARs made by lawyers. Is this a fair criticism and, if so, what is the reason for it?
20 September 2018
Search warrants at banks in the UK: what you need to know
Many a CF11 money-laundering reporting officer has watched the police carry his bank's computers away in the knowledge that this will bring its business - or part of it - to a grinding halt. What can a firm do to minimise disruption of this kind and challenge a search warrant? In this blog, Vivien Cochrane takes the compliance officer through the vagaries of British law, with a checklist for action at the end.
19 July 2018
The SFO’s privilege battles reaches the Court of Appeal
ENRC’s highly anticipated challenge to Andrews J’s High Court decision in the case of SFO v ENRC was recently heard over three days in the Court of Appeal.
19 February 2018
Litigation privilege: the Court of Appeal endorses ENRC
In another recent case relating to the circumstances required to successfully establish a claim to litigation privilege (see Philip Salvesen’s blog on the case of Bilta & Ors v RBS & Anor [2017] EWHC 3535 (Ch), the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) has followed the approach adopted in SFO v ENRC [2017] 1 WLR 4205 in ruling that a statement made by an employee to his company’s solicitors as part of their investigation into a death at work was not covered by privilege.