By Richard Wood and Chris Cartmell This year PwC’s Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey saw the reported rate of bribery, corruption and other economic crime rise in every region across the 123 territories surveyed. At the same time public expectations are rising in their demands for accountability. It is...
Latest PwC Legal posts
Concerned about the slew of legislation, regulations and consultations? We’ll keep you up to date on the developments affecting your business.
19 September 2018
04 July 2018
Bribery Act 2010 Committee established
By Chris Cartmell and Tom Dale, Regulatory and Commercial Disputes What is happening? A House of Lords Select Committee has been established to review the UK Bribery Act 2010 (UKBA). This is a key part of the act’s post-legislative scrutiny, the process for which was set out by the Government...
25 April 2018
UK Bribery Act’s ‘adequate procedures’ – guidance for SMEs
By Chris Cartmell and Tom Dale Background In the recent case of R v Skansen Interiors Limited (unreported), the UK Bribery Act 2010’s (the Act) ‘adequate procedures’ corporate defence was argued in the UK Court for the first time. Skansen Interiors Limited (SIL), a refurbishment fit-out business, was found guilty...
08 March 2018
Corporate Criminal Offences and self-reporting
By Keily Blair (Director, Solicitor), Chris Cartmell (Senior Manager, Solicitor), Kate Langley (Manager, Solicitor) Following the enactment of the Criminal Finances Act on 30th September 2017 (CFA), HMRC launched a CCO self-reporting website, calling upon company representatives to self report the facilitation of tax evasion contrary to the Corporate Criminal...
15 January 2018
UK Government starts to draw the post-Brexit compliance landscape
Polly Miles (Senior Associate, Solicitor) – Regulatory and Commercial Dispute The Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill (the “Bill”) is set to ensure that post-Brexit the UK is able to impose, update and lift sanctions and AML regimes. The House of Lords concluded its committee stage review last month and are...
08 January 2018
Tribunal fees abolished and increasingly complex employment obligations – how can you protect your business?
By Ed Stacey, PwC Legal partner Statistics published by the government at the end of last year showed that the number of employment tribunal claims increased by a massive 64% in the two months after fees were abolished - the highest in the UK for four years. Significantly, claims for...
12 December 2017
Unexplained Wealth Orders
By Agnes Quashie, Partner Solicitor and Nabeel Osman, Senior Manager, Barrister - Regulatory and Commercial Disputes The Criminal Finances Act 2017 introduced Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs), a new investigative tool which extends the UK’s existing civil recovery scheme (as set out in the UK Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA)....
04 December 2017
Providing flexible solutions to growing financial regulation
By Peter Workman The Criminal Finances Act 2017 which came into force on 30 September this year created two new corporate criminal offences in respect of the facilitation of tax evasion (together the ‘Corporate Criminal Offences’). With successful prosecutions leaving businesses open to possible unlimited fines, loss of operating licenses...
17 November 2017
Using a specialist contingent workforce like Flexible Legal Resources can help businesses work through their Brexit related regulatory challenges.
By Peter Workman As we are all too aware the people of Britain have voted to leave the European Union. No member state has ever left the EU before and as such the process for withdrawal remains a great unknown. What we do know however, is that achieving a successful...
03 November 2017
The role of the contingent workforce
2017/18 promises to be a fascinating and in many ways pivotal period for the Financial Services sector both in the UK and globally. Many Financial Services firms have been grappling for some time with how to properly adapt their businesses for certain key upcoming regulatory changes. With regulators, in many...
27 July 2017
Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision - Regulation for regulation’s sake?
By Keily Blair and Joanna Barnwell As detailed in our blog on 3 April 2017 the Government announced that a new Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (OPBAS) would be established within the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) by early 2018 to supervise the existing 25 anti-money laundering (AML) supervisors...
14 July 2017
The Impact of the Criminal Finances Act 2017
By Keily Blair, Polly Miles and Oliver Brooks Following the introduction to Parliament of Regulations on 12 July, it has been confirmed that the Criminal Finances Act 2017 (the "Act") will come into force on 30 September. Among other things, the Act creates two new corporate criminal offences in respect...
26 June 2017
Implementation Day for the Fourth Money Laundering Directive – strengthening the EU’s anti-money laundering regime
By Keily Blair, Polly Miles and Matt Timmons Today marks the implementation date for the EU’s Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (4MLD). 4MLD has been hailed as the instrument necessary to strengthen the EU’s defences against money laundering and terrorist financing. Its implementation requires “obliged entities” (the regulated sector) to assess...
18 May 2017
The nuances of input VAT recovery
By Prem Mehta and Prinal Nathwani Central to the operation of the VAT system is the principle that a fully taxable business should not have to face the burden of irrecoverable VAT. The right of a business to recover the VAT that it incurs is a fundamental principle of the...
28 April 2017
Criminal Finances Bill finally becomes law as the Criminal Finances Act 2017 is passed
By Keily Blair and Victoria Murphy Yesterday, 27 April 2017, the hotly anticipated Criminal Finances Bill finally received Royal Assent and became the Criminal Finances Act 2017. With it comes greater powers for law enforcement agencies to tackle tax evasion, money laundering, corruption and terrorist financing. Here at PwC, we...
03 April 2017
Who watches the watchmen? A new supra-regulator for Anti-Money Laundering in the UK
By Keily Blair and Jo Barnwell On 15 March 2017, the UK Government announced it is setting up a new watchdog, the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (OPBAS). OPBAS, which will sit within the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), is being created to oversee and streamline the UK’s various...
17 March 2017
VAT and electronic publications: the next chapter
By Prinal Nathwani As technological advances continue to be made, it is important that the law adapts and is flexible enough to accommodate these developments. The position is no different for VAT law, especially when it is noted that the core provisions applied in the UK were drafted over two...
14 March 2017
The ever changing landscape of corporate criminal liability for economic crime - what does this mean for financial institutions?
By Keily Blair and Andrea Holder Many commentators, regulators and policy makers believe that broadening corporate criminal liability is a step in the right direction. Others argue that the current state of UK corporate criminal liability makes it more difficult to successfully prosecute large corporates with complex management structures. Apart...
07 March 2017
Facing Facts: the impact of migrants on London, its workforce and economy
By Julia Onslow-Cole PwC launched a new report with London First on the impact of migrants on London, its workforce and economy. While there has been much discussion about immigration over the last few months, there has been a lack of hard evidence about the contribution of migration. What we’ve...
18 February 2017
A proposal: Board engagement with stakeholders
The BEIS Green Paper Consultation on Corporate Governance Reform has now closed, and it’s clear from recent press coverage that views, not only the solution, but also on the problem that’s being resolved, vary enormously. Even when leaving Executive Pay to one side (although do read Tom’s Gosling’s report on...
Private Company Governance, one size doesn’t fit all
The recent BEIS Green Paper on Corporate Governance Reform asks the question “What is the case for strengthening the corporate governance framework for the UK’s largest, privately-held businesses?” Private businesses represent a significant part of the UK economy, consisting of a vast range of different business models and scale, and...
10 February 2017
Another “fine” mess - the Landfill Tax gap
By Jayne Harrold & Holly Grantham In HMRC’s latest report on the tax gap, published in December 2016, the landfill tax gap was reported separately for the first time as £150m. At 12% of the expected tax take the landfill tax gap is comparable to the tax gaps for tobacco...
31 January 2017
CJEU confirms that interest is recoverable on wrongly paid duties
By David Anderson Back in September we posted an update on the Advocate-General's opinion in Wortmann KG Internationale Shuhproduktionen (Case C-365/15), in which it was suggested that businesses might be able to reclaim interest on import and export duties wrongly paid to HMRC. This was despite the prohibition contained within...
Clarifying the scope of the cost-sharing exemption
By Prinal Nathwani and David Anderson It is common for many businesses to come together and pool resources as a means of sharing these resources amongst the group, or even as a means of saving money when procuring services externally. However, for those entities which make exempt or partially exempt...
12 January 2017
A change in approach by HMRC to Alternative Dispute Resolution?
We are seeing an increase in examples where HMRC are taking a proactive approach to using Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") as a further tool in resolving tax disputes. This has included instances where HMRC's decision letter specifically mentions the taxpayer's ability to pursue ADR as a method of resolving the...