United Kingdom: White Collar Crime, Anti-Corruption & Fraud

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 introduces a sweeping expansion of corporate criminal liability in the UK, extending the reformed identification doctrine to all criminal offences beyond economic crime. This fundamental shift means organisations can now be held liable when senior managers commit any criminal offence within their authority, with no reasonable procedures defence available.

On 9 March 2026, the UK government published the Fraud Strategy 2026–2029: Disrupting crime, supporting economic resilience and delivering justice (the Strategy), replacing the 2023–2025 framework.

The English High Court has confirmed that cryptoassets should be treated as existing where their owner resides, establishing clear jurisdictional grounds for tort claims.

For businesses that have pegged their anti-bribery and anti-corruption (ABAC) programmes to UK Bribery Act 2010 standards, will the new EU Directive on combatting corruption (Directive) make any difference? In short, yes.

Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs) were introduced pursuant to the Criminal Finances Act 2017 in the UK to strengthen UK proceeds of crime regimes.

In this briefing, we consider the key takeaways from the Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International for 2025.

Financial fraud continues to expand, often driven from overseas compounds, has steered the Government to launch an online crime squad.

When a person dies intestate and it is not possible to identify any heirs then the estate will eventually be taken over by the Crown. In England and Wales, where this happens there is a public list known as the “Bona Vacantia” list

To give regulated firms the confidence and ability to share information, the provisions disapply both obligations of confidentiality and civil liability when a firm uses the new information sharing gateways. In practical terms, this means that a regulated firm sharing customer information with another regulated firm under these provisions would have a defence to a breach of confidence claim or other civil action from the customer concerned.