On 3 October 2019, the UK and US governments signed the first bilateral Data Access Agreement (the Agreement) under the US Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act 2018 (CLOUD Act) and the UK Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Act 2019. The Agreement seeks to facilitate faster and more direct access by each country’s agencies in criminal matters  to electronic information held by companies in the other jurisdiction (and in particular data held by technology companies on…

GDPR[1] together with increasingly stringent data protection legislation in many jurisdictions presents a major headache for companies conducting investigations[2]. There are now significant challenges in lawfully reviewing employee data and doing so requires careful consideration and management of data privacy risks (and documentation of this process). Many organisations do not adequately manage these risks when conducting investigations but failure to do so may create new regulatory issues. Why is this an issue?…

Earlier this month, the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) published its Corporate Cooperation Guidance (the Guidance), providing a list of “good practices” it expects from companies seeking to obtain a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA). The Director of the SFO has said that the Guidance would provide “added transparency about what [companies] might expect if they decide to self-report fraud or corruption to my office” (see our previous blogpost). However, the long-awaited Guidance is very…

On 9 July 2019, the FCA published its Anti-money Laundering (AML) Annual Report for 2018/2019. The report echoes Mark Steward’s comments in a speech earlier this year in relation to the FCA’s increasing focus on criminal investigations for money laundering. The newly published Report states that ‘some’ of the FCA’s current AML investigations are now dual track (i.e. investigations which may result in either criminal or civil proceedings). The FCA describes these dual track…

On 4 July 2019, the UK’s fifth Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) was approved. The DPA is between the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and Serco Geografix Limited (SGL), a subsidiary of Serco Group PLC, and relates to fraud and false accounting offences. The offences relate to a scheme to dishonestly mislead the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) as to profits being made between 2010 and 2013 by SGL’s parent company,  Serco Limited (SL), from its contract for…

On 8 July 2019, in the case of N v the Royal Bank of Scotland plc, the High Court (the Court) handed down a judgment which provides guidance on how banks respond to alleged money laundering activities. N, an authorised payment institution, issued proceedings for an interim mandatory injunction against the bank after it decided to freeze a number of accounts that N held and to terminate the banking relationship without notice. The decision to…

The First-Tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) has recently held that HMRC can issue third party information notices to non-UK residents under paragraph 2 of Schedule 36 to the Finance Act 2008 (Schedule 36). The FTT in Mr and Mrs PQ v HMRC[1] held that the residency status of individuals will not in itself determine HMRC’s ability to issue third party notices if there is a “sufficient connection” between the required information and its intended recipient.…