New figures were recently released by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) in relation to white collar crime offences and the numbers reveal that corporate crime is healthy, thriving and the authorities must take heed.
The Statistics
The Ministry of Justice made their recent announcement concerning data compiled in relation to 2015. The figures for last year show that 9,401 white collar cases were prosecuted, up from 9,343 in 2014. Until 2015, prosecutions for white collar offences had in fact fallen year-on-year since 2011, however 2011 represented a century record of 11,261 defendants who faced white collar charges.
The statistics detailed a substantial increase in cyber-crime, while the increase only saw an additional 6 cases in 2015, this represented a 36 percent increase in reported cyber-crime cases, a rise to 61 prosecutions last year up from 45 cases in the previous year.
Included for the first time in MOJ statistics, data covering Internet crime which disclosed an estimated 5.1m incidents of members of the public falling victim to online fraud, while an approximate 2.5m incidents were reported for offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
The Response
The UK Government has previously responded to white collar crime with various measures ranging from robust legislation such as the Bribery Act 2010, widely regarded as one of the toughest pieces of anti-corruption legislation not just in Europe but in the world. In 2013 the UK established the National Crime Agency (NCA), the lead body primarily concerned in economic crime, cyber-crime and enforcing UK anti-money laundering laws.
More recently, at the Anti-Corruption Summit 2016, the UK Government unveiled a range of new measures to assist in the UK's fight against white collar crime. Most notably, the government has pledged to extend the offence of 'failure to prevent' beyond bribery and tax evasion crimes to encompass further economic crimes including fraud and money laundering.
The MOJ now plan to consult on the plan to extend the ambit of the offence 'failure to prevent' and this has been further supported by Justice Minister Dominic Raab who said:
"We are taking a rigorous and robust approach to corporations that fail to prevent bribery or allow tax evasion on their behalf. We will now carefully consider any further extension of this model to other areas of economic crime, so that corporations are properly held to account."
With the figures dictating that the white collar and cyber-crime offending trend is on an upward trajectory, the message is clear to the UK government and authorities – the UK cannot stand still when white collar crime shows no sign of a down turn and corporations currently have no motivation to take pre-emptive action.
Disclaimer
The material contained in this article is of the nature of general comment only and does not give advice on any particular matter. Recipients should not act on the basis of the information in this e-update without taking appropriate professional advice upon their own particular circumstances.
