Senior Partner Aziz Rahman considers the current problems regarding corporate criminal liability and some potential solutions

With the Law Commission set to examine the issue of corporate criminal liability, Rahman Ravelli’s Aziz Rahman wrote an analysis of current problems surrounding the issue.

In his article, Aziz explains that the requirement to establish the controlling mind of a company in order to show corporate criminal liability makes it difficult to bring successful prosecutions – a point that has been made on numerous occasions by the Serious Fraud Office. He also points out that previous attempts to address the problem have come to nothing.

The article outlines the current situation, where the UK’s only failure to prevent offences are the failure to prevent tax evasion, in the Criminal Finances Act 2017, and the failure to prevent bribery offence, under Section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010. It argues that introducing a wide-ranging offence of failure to prevent economic crime would make it easier to secure convictions. But it also emphasises the need for any new legislation to be accompanied by relevant guidance.

Aziz says that expanding the definition of the controlling mind of a company and increased regulation of some business sectors may also be proposals that the Law Commission puts forward. 

His article was published by Law 360.