The FCA proposes new listing guidance for cannabis-related businesses – a positive step for investors concerned about the Proceeds of Crime Act

The Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Act 2019 (COPOA) was enacted three years ago to give law enforcement agencies the power to directly obtain electronic data from service providers based outside the UK for the purpose of preventing, detecting and investigating serious crimes through the use of Overseas Production Orders (OPOs).

On 13 May 2022, the FCA published a final refusing Alexander Jon Compliance Consulting Ltd.’s (“AJCC”) application for authorisation to provide regulatory hosting services. There is no specific definition of what a regulatory host is, but the FCA generally regards it as a commercial arrangement whereby an authorised Principal firm appoints and oversees a number of unconnected Appointed Representatives (“ARs”) which operate across a range of markets. 

We are delighted to present, as a guest blog, the thoughts and views of Dr Valentyn Gvozdiy, managing partner of Golaw in Kyiv. Dr Gvozdiy outlines the significant changes to criminal procedure that have been heralded by the Russian invasion of his country and the subsequent adoption of martial law.

On Thursday 5 May, Kingsley Napley hosted the 4^th annual Cross-Border Criminal Law Conference, which focused on individual and corporate accountability for international crimes.

This quarterly update provides a summary of a selection number of news stories relating to health and safety investigations and prosecutions, published in the period January - March 2022.

Whilst it is anticipated that prosecutions under the National Security and Investment Act 2021 (‘the Act’) will be exceptionally rare, the criminal sanctions set out in it are explicitly framed to create a “sufficiently robust deterrent to ensure compliance.” The provisions punish corporates and individual officers who connive or consent to commit an offence, as well as individual officers who are negligent (s.36). In addition, they are also extra-territorial (s.52), meaning that the scope of liability is particularly wide-ranging.

This quarterly environmental law update provides a summary of news stories in the period January 2022 – March 2022

The Prime Minister recently committed the UK’s support to achieving justice in respect of the war crimes allegations arising out of the Ukraine conflict. The conflict and associated allegations raise questions over the UK’s commitment and ability to bring prosecutions under the doctrine of “universal jurisdiction”. Universal jurisdiction describes the jurisdiction that is available in the national courts of many countries to prosecute individuals for the most serious international crimes, even if those crimes occurred abroad and neither the defendants nor victims have any connection to that country. Why only a few such prosecutions have taken place in the UK will be the topic of one of two panel discussions at Kingsley Napley’s Cross Border Criminal Law Conference on 5 May 2022.

This quarterly international criminal law update provides a summary of the news stories in the period January – March 2022. The relevance of international criminal law has been tragically highlighted by the current events in the Ukraine. This fast moving event has been covered below, along with a number of other international criminal law updates.

News broke last month that megastars Jay-Z, Meek Mill, Big Sean, Kelly Rowland and Fat Joe (among others) were supporting the introduction of a New York state law that aims to prevent the prosecution using rap lyrics in criminal trials.

On 28 February 2022, the UK Home Secretary Priti Patel announced to parliament that the UK would be ‘leading all international efforts’ to suspend Russia’s membership of INTERPOL.  

This came moments before the Ukrainian minister of internal affairs, Denis Monastyrsky, made a public statement demanding Russia’s immediate expulsion from the organisation for “violating its basic principles and massive misuse of tools and services to cover up its crimes and persecute political enemies, particularly in Ukraine.”

The news is never short of horror stories involving travellers who find themselves detained in a foreign country. This is sadly a reality for thousands of British citizens who, for a variety of reasons, are being held in a prison abroad.

A new bill will be put forward to parliament tomorrow with the aim of increasing transparency of ownership of property in the UK. The introduction of this new Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill has been expedited following the sanctions announced last week, however the drive for change began over five years ago and that it is finally coming to fruition will be welcomed by many.

On 16 November the CJEU delivered its judgment following the publication of the Advocate General’s opinion on the UK-Ireland extradition questions which we wrote about here. The decision concerned the mechanisms for extradition to the UK from Ireland in two scenarios (1) under the terms of the withdrawal agreement from 1 February to 31 December 2020 and (2) under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (“TCA”) from 1 January 2021.

The judgment confirms the AG’s Opinion that Ireland is bound by the withdrawal agreement and the TCA (“the agreements”) in respect of extradition arrangements with the UK and accordingly extradition from Ireland to the UK post-Brexit will continue under those terms.

In September 2020, the first NHS prescription for cannabis medicine was issued to Billy Caldwell. This brought hope to him, his family and so many others that this medicine would become readily available to those patients who so desperately need it.

This blogs considers the recent corporate manslaughter conviction of Deco-Pak and two other recent corporate manslaughter cases, Bosley Mill and Aster Healthcare and what they tell us about the current approach to this offence. In January 2022 a garden supplies firm, Deco-Pak was found guilty of corporate manslaughter following a fatal accident at the Deco-Pak premises in Hipperholme, West Yorkshire on 14 April 2017.

The Medical Cannabis (Access) Bill (the ‘Bill’) aims to enable patients in England to access cannabis-based medicinal products (‘CBMPs’), such as nabiximols, more freely on the NHS. Although English law was changed in November 2018 to allow specialist doctors to prescribe cannabis (we have blogged about this here), very few people have been able to access NHS prescriptions which has left patients paying thousands of pounds a month for private prescriptions or unable to obtain treatment altogether. There are approximately 10,000 private prescriptions for CBMPs in the UK. In a paper published by BMJ Open in 2020, Professor David Nutt et. al. reported that thousands of UK patients were self-medicating with illicit cannabis-based products.

On 10 January 2020, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) became the anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) supervisor for UK cryptoasset firms. Two years in, how effectively is it performing its role as the gatekeeper of the new registration regime?

Guest author Edward Henry QC, of Mountford Chambers, considers the ongoing issues regarding access to medicinal cannabis, specifically relating to the treatment of children, in the United Kingdom (UK).

This quarterly environmental law update provides a summary of news stories published in the period October – December 2021.