Financial crime
Read thoughts from Allen & Overy on financial crime issues in the context of financial services investigations.
Is it the end of the road for the SFO?
31 May 2017 - Blair Keown
The Conservative Party has pledged in its manifesto to incorporate the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into the National Crime Agency (NCA). As Home Secretary, Theresa May twice tried unsuccessfully to restructure the SFO. In 2011, she proposed sending the SFO’s investigators to the NCA and its prosecutors to the Crown Prosecution Service. In 2014, reports › Read More
09 May 2017 - Calum Macdonald
On 27 April, the Criminal Finances Bill received Royal Assent. Now the Criminal Finances Act 2017, it represents the most significant development in the UK’s anti-money laundering regime in more than a decade and the largest expansion of corporate criminal liability since the Bribery Act 2010. We have covered key parts of the Criminal Finances Act previously › Read More
The FCA’s Business Plan 2017/2018: Key themes
20 April 2017 - Samantha Holland
Earlier this week, on 18 April 2017, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (the FCA) published its Business Plan for 2017/2018 setting out the FCA’s activities and priorities for the coming year. At the same time the FCA published its Mission (see our previous blog post on the FCA’s consultation on its Mission here) and, for › Read More
Hong Kong SFC Investigation Priorities
09 December 2016 - Ryan Middlemas
A recent speech by Thomas Atkinson, the new Director of Enforcement for the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), may herald changes to the SFC’s enforcement priorities. The SFC has also announced that it would be conducting a comprehensive review of its investigation processes in response to independent criticism. What does that mean for the enforcement › Read More
Cease and desist – or not? Challenging the SFO’s discretion to investigate
22 November 2016 - Stacey McEvoy
In a case the first of its kind, Soma Oil And Gas Ltd (Soma) sought, by way of judicial review, to require the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to cease its long-running investigation into potential bribery and corruption offences committed in Somalia by Soma. While expressing its ‘sympathy’ with Soma’s position, and exhorting the SFO to › Read More