The leading criminal defence
solicitors in the UK

This quarterly environmental law update provides a summary of a cross-section of news stories in the period April 2022 - June 2022. 

This quarterly update summarises a selection of news stories relating to health and safety investigations and prosecutions published in the period April – June 2022 as well as some of the key corporate manslaughter cases which have been brought in recent months.

As environmental, social and governance matters have moved further up the agendas of businesses and their stakeholders, regulators and prosecutors both in the UK and abroad have assessed their priorities and powers. Organisations need to consider best practice for engaging with regulators if they find themselves facing the sharp end of an investigation.

This half-year update provides an overview of recent enforcement activity by the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) in the period from January to June 2022.

This quarterly international criminal law update provides a summary of the news stories in the period April – June 2022. The relevance of international criminal law continues to be highlighted by the war in Ukraine. As events have unfolded, we have covered relevant developments below along with a number of other international law news stories.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 ‘the Act’ has correctly attracted much criticism since it was first introduced as a Bill to the House of Commons in the March of 2021. There are numerous and alarming issues raised for civil liberties raised by this legislation which are beyond the scope of this post (see here for further commentary). Nonetheless, there is one aspect of the Act (which received Royal Assent on 28 April 2022) that can be welcomed: the expansion of the scheme for disregarding convictions or cautions received for historical consensual same-sex sexual activity.

Nicola Finnerty and Gemma Tombs discuss the legal framework that underpins the UK’s anti-money laundering regime and consider how businesses can effectively fine-tune their approach to AML compliance.

After the British Government's approved the request by the US to extradite Wikileak's founder Julian Assange, Rebecca Niblock's reaction was reported the international media.

On 10th June, the Law Commission launched its “Options Paper” which presents a number of ways in which the law of corporate criminal liability could be reformed. The detailed paper, accompanied by a 14 page summary document, sets out potential options for reform in this area and rules out other possibilities as not viable.

After The Law Commission recommended that the Government introduce new rules holding companies liable, and subject to fines, for crimes committed by senior executives, our Partner Alun Milford gave his reaction.

In this blog, we discuss what new police data reveals about the use of Outcome 22 three years after its introduction and the startling disparity of its use by different forces.

Magda Zima was recently published in Solicitors Journal discussing The metaverse: virtual offences and real world penalties.

Celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year, Criminal Law Week is proud to have launched its bi-annual seminar series. The inaugural event took place on 24 May 2022, hosted by Kingsley Napley LLP and chaired by Matt Hardcastle. 

There can be little doubt that the failure of London Capital & Finance Plc, and the subsequent report by Dame Elizabeth Gloster, have significantly changed the FCA’s approach to the supervision of regulated firms and protection of consumers in an increasingly complex financial environment. 

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.