Introduction
On 6 November 2024 the UK government published its long-anticipated guidance on the failure to prevent fraud offence (the Guidance).
The new offence will come into force in September 2025. It will apply both to UK and to non-UK organisations, where there is some nexus to the UK. The only defence for an organisation will be to have in place “reasonable procedures” to prevent fraud. More details on the new offence, including the underlying fraud offences covered, are set out here.
The first step when considering putting in place or enhancing anti-fraud procedures is to conduct a risk assessment. This helps to ensure anti-fraud policies and procedures are focused on the areas of highest risk for the company and proportionate to those risks. In this article we have considered how best to approach a risk assessment.
As the Guidance acknowledges, organisations may have existing risk assessment frameworks that can be adapted to include fraud for the benefit of the organisatio
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