Top 5 Takeaways from Our UK Anti-Bribery & Corporate Crime Webinar

Below are the five key webinar takeaways. 

1. SFO Enforcement Is Uneven — But Not Irrelevant 

The enforcement environment in the UK remains inconsistent. Senior departures at the Serious Fraud Office, discontinued cases, and uncertainty around future leadership have created a perception of reduced momentum. 

At the same time, there have been meaningful developments: 

The risk calculus should not be based solely on enforcement activity, but on structural changes to liability. 

2. Failure to Prevent Fraud Is Now Live — and the Focus is on Ongoing Monitoring 

Crucially, the Ministry of Justice guidance emphasizes monitoring and review:  Organisations must learn from investigations, whistleblowing incidents, and sector developments — and feed those learnings back into their anti-fraud framework. 

This shifts the conversation from:“Do we have a programme in place?” to “Can we demonstrate that we continuously refine and improve it?” 

From an enforcement advocacy perspective, maturity at a point in time is helpful but evidence of cultural commitment and feedback loops may be even more persuasive. 

For mid-sized organisations in particular, this is important: regulators are looking for reasonableness and responsiveness, not perfection. 

3. The Identification Principle Has Been Radically Reformed 

One of the most significant (and underappreciated) recent developments in the field of corporate criminal liability is the reform of the attribution principle introduced by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023. 

Historically, companies could only be criminally liable if the “directing mind and will” (ie a statutory director) possessed the necessary criminal intent — a high bar that limited prosecutions. 

That has now shifted to a “senior manager” test. 

And under the forthcoming Crime and Policing Bill, that senior manager test will apply to all criminal offences, not just specified economic crimes. 

This represents a profound expansion of corporate exposure: 

While practical enforcement outside economic crime may remain limited for now, the theoretical exposure is materially higher than under the historical regime. 

In short: the risk profile has structurally changed. 

4. Enforcement Is No Longer the Only Pressure Point 

Even in an environment of uneven regulatory activity, companies face increasing scrutiny from: 

The webinar highlighted growing use of criminal law concepts in policy advocacy — particularly in areas such as sanctions, export controls, and modern slavery. 

In parallel, discussions around US-style whistleblower reward mechanisms remain active policy considerations. 

The message for boards is clear: Exposure is not defined solely by the SFO’s caseload. It is shaped by a multi-layered accountability ecosystem. 

5. The Most Effective Response Is Targeted, Risk-Based Focus 

One of the strongest themes from the discussion was the importance of bespoke risk assessment. 

This is particularly relevant in the context of third-party risk management. 

Failure to prevent offences and expanded attribution rules mean that: 

can directly create corporate criminal exposure. 

Robust third-party risk frameworks are no longer best practice — they are central to defensibility. 

Summary: Enforcement May Be Patchy — But Liability Is Expanding 

As noted in the session, the combination of: 

means that the risk of exposure to corporate criminal liability has never been higher, even if enforcement headlines suggest otherwise. 

For compliance leaders, this is not a moment to scale back. It is a moment to refine: 

In an evolving regulatory environment, the organisations best positioned are not those with the largest compliance budgets, but those that can clearly evidence learning, oversight, and ethical intent.