Blog
Permission to Visit - Goldilocks and the Three Bank Statements
Robert Houchill
28 February 2019
New powers to gather electronic evidence from overseas agreed
The Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Act 2019 marks a major departure in the current mutual legal assistance regime in relation to gathering electronic evidence from overseas. Receiving Royal Assent on the 12 February 2019, the act gives powers to law enforcement to apply for an Overseas Production Order (OPO) to obtain electronic data directly from service providers based outside the UK for the purposes of criminal investigations and prosecutions for serious crime.
26 February 2019
Victims of blackmail: will your identity be protected?
For those who find themselves the unfortunate victims of blackmail, often in cases which concern sexually explicit information (‘sextortion’), the choice of how to respond can be extraordinarily difficult. As discussed in our earlier blog, one of the possible responses is to report the matter to the police, which may then result in a subsequent prosecution of the blackmailer.
22 February 2019
Brexit uncertainty pervades Competition and Markets Authority Annual Plan 2019-20
The current uncertainty surrounding the terms of the UK’s Withdrawal from the EU, forces the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to admit that it had anticipated that “the path ahead would be clearer” when preparing to publish the Annual Plan for 2019-20. “Whilst clarity is no doubt approaching, important details around the timing and nature of the UK’s exit from the EU remain unresolved.”
21 February 2019
Lie detection tests for convicted domestic abuse offenders is a costly distraction
One of the more striking features of the government’s draft domestic abuse bill, which was published 21 January, was the proposed extension of the ‘polygraph condition’ to convicted offenders’ licences. In this blog, Matthew Hardcastle questions the inclusion of polygraph testing in the government’s recent draft domestic abuse bill.
13 February 2019
Unexplained Wealth Orders: What we know one year on
The Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO) has been available to law enforcement since February 2018. UWOs are intended to bolster the Proceeds of Crime regime, by making it easier for law enforcement agencies to seize assets suspected of representing criminal property.
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