The provisions of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 relating to the new offence of failure to prevent fraud that will apply to large companies will take effect from 1 September 2025. Off the back of this announcement, the Home Office has published its guidance for affected organisations. The guidance stresses that it is advisory, and both that compliance with it will not of itself necessarily amount to an organisation having in place relevant procedures while departure from it will not mean that it does not. The onus of relying on the defence that the organisation had in place reasonable procedures to prevent it from committing the offence will be on the organisation and the standard of proof is one of the balance of probabilities. It notes that in some limited circumstances it may be deemed reasonable not to introduce measures in respect of a particular risk but says it will rarely be reasonable not even to have carried out a risk assessment.
The guidance also not
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