Dawn Raids, Search and Seizure

The CPS’s June 2025 guidance on the forum bar marks a decisive narrowing of the circumstances in which prosecutor’s belief statements may be issued. Such statements (by which a domestic prosecutor expresses the view that the UK is not the most appropriate jurisdiction for prosecution) have often featured in litigation under sections 19B and 83A of the Extradition Act 2003.

On 18 August 2025, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) published their Joint SFO-CPS Corporate Prosecution Guidance, intended for prosecutors who will make decisions about whether or not to prosecute a corporation.

In June the Ministry of Justice announced new legislation under the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 which affects NDAs and confidentiality clauses.* Related guidance, published at the beginning of June, sets out the impact of this legislation on the enforceability of such agreements.

The  Leveson review has been billed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reform the court system, with 45 recommendations being presented to Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood.

In July 2024 the Office for Students (OfS) published guidance on a new condition of registration dealing specifically with harassment and sexual misconduct. That condition, ‘E6’, comes into force on 1 August 2025. As such, universities and colleges have had a year to ensure they comply.

On 16 July 2025, the Insolvency Service released its new five-year strategy towards tackling economic crime facilitated by companies to be implemented between 2026-2031. Despite an enthusiastic introduction to its plans as ‘ambitious’ and ‘transformational’, the four strategic pillars laid out in the strategy brief – to target more cases involving corporate structures and serious criminality; exploit emerging technology; collaborate closely with public and private sector partners; and recruit, retain and invest in its workforce – echo the agency’s existing commitments, as well as the aims of recently released strategies by adjacent organisations like the FCA, NECC and CPS.

As of 25 July 2025, new child safety duties under the Online Safety Act have come into force, requiring online platforms to implement robust safety measures to prevent children from accessing illegal or harmful content. The consequences for non-compliance are significant, making it essential for online providers to understand their new obligations.

As global crime evolves and political landscapes shift, the UK’s legal frameworks for international cooperation and extradition are showing their age. In a new blog, Rebecca Niblock explores the  Criminal Law Reform Now Network (CLRNN) Scoping Review   (June 2025) which makes a compelling case: the time for reform is now.

On 29 April 2025, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published a consultation on proposed revisions to its leniency guidance for cartel cases. The changes are intended to reflect legislative changes, align with current enforcement practices, and enhance the clarity, accessibility, and effectiveness of the CMA’s leniency regime.

HM Treasury has published a draft statutory instrument which, when brought into force, will introduce a new regulatory regime for cryptoassets in the UK.

Criminal risk isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when considering the commercial drivers behind a merger or acquisition. But our recent roundtable discussion at our offices made clear that criminal liability—however peripheral it might seem—can have very real consequences for deal viability and post-completion exposure. Here are five key takeaways from a discussion that brought together legal and business perspectives on how economic crime intersects with transactional work.

Whilst historically, climate-related litigation has been focused on governments, a report published last year by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment showcased how, in recent years, climate litigation is being initiated more frequently against corporations for alleged Environment, Social and Governance (“ESG”) failings

The new Netflix drama Adolescence has propelled many themes to the forefront of our national conversations in the last week. With the corrosive effect of social media on our children being the most important, it is hardly surprising that the realism of the portrayal of the criminal justice system in the series has been somewhat overlooked.

As we await the release of the Netflix series Adolescence this evening by award winning writer Jack Thorne, I am interested to see how the series will deal with very real, yet often publicly unheard problems of how our criminal justice system, in particular the police, manage children who are alleged to have committed serious offences.

On 6 February the House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee published its response to the latest iteration of the FCA’s proposals to “name and shame” firms under investigation by the regulator.

Following the enactment of the Online Safety Act (“OSA”) in October 2023, Ofcom has prepared a multi-stage plan for its implementation. Under this legislation, online service providers are subject to a number of new obligations, and Ofcom has a duty to ensure compliance with these requirements. 

On 17 January, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) secured its first Unexplained Wealth Order, in respect of a property believed to have been purchased with the proceeds of a £100 million fraud. 

Whatever its cause, a backlog of over 73,000 Crown court cases is not acceptable. Delays for complainants, defendants and witnesses all impede justice. In the third quarter of 2024, the Crown court received over 31,683 new cases and disposed of 29,502. The passage of time will not solve the problem. Change is inevitable. 

A recent update on INTERPOL’s website is unlikely to raise eyebrows. The Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF) has acknowledged that it has been experiencing delays in meeting its deadlines due to an increased workload, both within the Commission and among other INTERPOL stakeholders. This will be all too familiar to those targeted by red notices and their representatives. Resourcing issues and delays have long plagued the CCF, despite operational rules requiring decisions on disclosure requests within four months and deletion requests within nine months.

In this article, Sandra Paul, a Partner at Kingsley Napley, looks at the rise of sextortion and blackmail, the legal landscape in regard to such offences and the need for the current protections to be reviewed and consolidated