Current law makes it practically impossible to hold corporate boards to account for corporate misconduct, experts say.
Senior corporate executives could be prosecuted for offences including fraud and money laundering carried out by staff under an expansion of laws targeting so-called white-collar crime.
Attorney General Jeremy Wright said the Government is to consult on plans to extend “failure to prevent” offences, currently only covering bribery and tax evasion, to a wider range of economic crimes committed by employees, also including false accounting.
It comes after former prime minister David Cameron in May announced a consultation on plans for a new law as he held an anti-corruption summit in London.
Writing in The Guardian in May ahead of the London summit, Mr Cameron said the new laws would mean “firms are properly held to account for criminal activity that takes place within them”.
Barry Vitou, partner in fraud and white-collar crime at law firm Pinsent Masons, told The Times: “The present regime makes it practically impossible to hold corporate boards to account for corporate misconduct because evidence of that misconduct must be found at the highest level.
”In practice the evidence trail usually dries much lower down the corporate tree. There is no responsibility for the damage caused by failing to prevent economic crime nor incentives offered which motivate people to do the wrong thing.“
Source: The Independent