Legal Experts Urge Companies To Ensure They Have Adequate Internal Procedures In Place To Prevent Fraud

Legal experts at national law firm Irwin Mitchell have urged companies to make sure they have adequate internal anti-fraud procedures in place after the Government announced plans for a new corporate offence for executives who fail to prevent money laundering inside their companies.

Ahead of today’s anti-corruption summit, Prime Minister David Cameron said the Government is proposing to extend a corporate failure-to-prevent law to include money laundering and fraud.

The plans mean that if an employee is charged with money laundering or fraud, their employer may be required to prove it had adequate procedures in place to prevent the financial crime or they may be deemed liable.

Today’s summit in London will be attended by the US secretary of state, John Kerry, and world leaders including Muhammadu Buhari, the Nigerian president, and Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan.