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Version status: Amended
Version date: 27 June 2023 - onwards
Version 2 of 2

198 Failure to prevent fraud

This format of the bill is taken from the text of stage 1st reading published on 22 September 2022 by House of Commons

(1) A relevant body is guilty of an offence if, in a financial year of the body (“the year of the fraud offence”), a person who is associated with the body (“the associate”) commits a fraud offence intending to benefit (whether directly or indirectly) -

(a) the relevant body, or

(b) any person to whom, or to whose subsidiary undertaking, the associate provides services on behalf of the relevant body.

(2) A relevant body is also guilty of an offence under subsection (1) if -

(a) an employee of the relevant body commits a fraud offence intending to benefit (whether directly or indirectly) the relevant body,

(b) the fraud offence is committed in a financial year of a parent undertaking of which the relevant body is a subsidiary undertaking (“the year of the fraud offence”), and

(c) the parent undertaking is a relevant body which is a large organisation.

(3) But the relevant body is not guilty of an offence under subsection (1)(b) if the body itself was, or was intended to be, a victim of the fraud offence.

(4) It is a defence for the relevant body to prove that, at the time the fraud offence was committed -

(a) the body had in place such prevention procedures as it was reasonable in all the circumstances to expect the body to have in place, or