Corporate criminal liability reform and a proposed new offence of ‘failure to prevent economic crime’ were debated in the House of Lords yesterday (3 April), during the Criminal Finances Bill second Committee day. You can read the Hansard here.
CORE welcomes call from Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights for laws to prevent child labour and other abuses linked to British companies.
It’s day two of Committee Stage in the House of Lords. This involves detailed line by line examination of the separate parts of the bill. As a reminder, the bill will create a new corporate offence of ‘failure to prevent tax evasion’, extending the ‘failure to prevent’ model in the UK Bribery Act 2010 to corporate tax evasion, although there is some question over what, if any, differences there are between ‘adequate procedures’ as specified by the Bribery Act and ‘reasonable procedures’ as specified in the new failure to prevent facilitation of tax evasion offence.
Supermarket chain Tesco escapes prosecution and pays a £129m fine and £85m in compensation to shareholders over 2014’s accounting scandal.
Global risk analyst Verisk Maplecroft has published its annual Human Rights Outlook report, outlining ten human rights risks impacting business in 2017. Verisk notes that modern slavery risks are set to increase as the United States toughens its immigration policy, pushing countless undocumented migrants further underground and exposing them to greater exploitation.
Last week (8 March) cross-party Peers debated much needed legal reform to tackle widespread corruption and human rights abuses committed by multi-national corporations.
Criminal law reform is needed if Theresa May is to deliver on her ambition of getting tough on irresponsible behaviour in big business, a group of NGOs have said ahead of a House of Lords debate tomorrow (9 March).
Today we show solidarity with women worldwide, championing the efforts of those who’ve fought back against the social and economic inequality that has afforded women a secondary status to men.
Later this week the House of Lords will debate the Criminal Finances Bill.
This is a government bill to amend the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
The bill will create a new corporate offence of ‘failure to prevent tax evasion’, meaning companies could be prosecuted for not having procedures in place to stop tax dodging.
