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

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:

• Updated SFO/CPS prosecution guidance
• Revised SFO evaluation criteria for corporate compliance programmes
• Publication of “Indicators of Corruption” with Five Eyes partners
• New investigations opened
• The first live section 7 UK Bribery Act (failure to prevent bribery) prosecution

As discussed during the session, enforcement may be “patchy,” but it would be a mistake to equate that with reduced exposure.

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

The failure to prevent fraud offence is now in force (since September 2025). This follows the architecture of the UK Bribery Act and holds organisations criminally liable if an associated person commits fraud for the company's benefit — unless the organisation can demonstrate “reasonable procedures.”

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

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, regulators are looking for reasonableness and responsiveness, not perfection.

The Identification Principle Has Been Radically Reformed

One of the most significant (and underappreciated) recent developments in 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” (i.e. a statutory director) possessed the necessary criminal intent — a high bar that limited prosecutions. That has now shifted to a “senior manager” test.

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:

• No “reasonable procedures” defence
• A broader category of individuals whose conduct can bind the company
• Potential exposure across a wider range of offences

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

Enforcement Is No Longer the Only Pressure Point

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

• Auditors
• Civil society
• NGOs
• Investors
• Cross-border enforcement collaboration

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 Most Effective Response Is Targeted, Risk-Based Focus

One of the strongest themes from the discussion was the importance of bespoke risk assessment. Rather than attempting to apply blanket controls across an entire third-party universe, organisations should:

• Map geographic and sector risk exposure
• Identify high-impact third-party relationships
• Prioritise monitoring in vulnerable business lines
• Demonstrate active review processes

Failure to prevent offences and expanded attribution rules mean that associated persons, agents, subsidiaries, and senior managers can directly create corporate criminal exposure.

Enforcement May Be Patchy — But Liability Is Expanding

As noted in the session, the combination of failure to prevent fraud, expanded senior manager attribution, broader economic crime reforms, and growing third-party scrutiny 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.