White-collar crime
The In-House Lawyer spoke to practitioners about how Covid-19, Brexit and the US Presidency will affect the white-collar crime agenda for GCs in the year ahead.
While we all willed Covid-19 to merrily disappear at the stroke of midnight on 1 January, in 2021 we are still very much living in volatile and unpredictable times. Though tempered by vaccine rollout efforts, the convergence of Brexit and the pandemic has created the perfect storm for white-collar crime to rise in the UK, compelling businesses to revisit their corporate governance and compliance models to assess if they can keep pace with the new order.
Despite suffering operational setbacks in the initial throes of the pandemic, UK regulators are still actively pursuing white-collar investigations and trials, with headline cases including ex-BHS boss Dominic Chappell being sentenced to six years in jail for tax evasion. What’s more, recent FCA clampdowns and HMRC dawn raids on businesses suspected of abusing the furlough scheme serve as a stark reminder that strict regulatory compliance is still – if not more – required now and in the months ahead.
