UK intensifies corporate crime crackdown with new offences and expanded powers

The United Kingdom is implementing the most sweeping reforms to white-collar crime enforcement in a decade, introducing a strict liability "failure to prevent fraud" offence and expanding investigatory powers across multiple regulatory bodies. The government's new anti-corruption strategy explicitly frames financial crime as a drag on economic growth, signalling a markedly more aggressive enforcement environment for corporations operating in Britain.

These reforms come as the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) demonstrates renewed vigour, conducting more dawn raids in the past three months than in the previous three years, while regulators coordinate more closely on cross-border investigations. For businesses, the changes create significantly higher risks of both corporate and individual liability, with prosecutors now armed with expanded charging options and tougher tools to extract evidence.

Background and Context

The reforms reflect the UK government's determination to strengthen its approach to economic crime following years of criticism that enforcement has been insufficiently robust. The anti-corruption strategy positions fraud and corruption not just as criminal matters but as impediments to national prosperity, justifying tougher measures against corporate misconduct.

This shift occurs alongside technological changes in enforcement. The government is piloting an AI-powered corruption investigation assistant designed to analyse vast quantities of data from investigations and suspicious activity reports (SARs) to detect criminal patterns more efficiently. The integration of artificial intelligence into monitoring and investigations is expected to accelerate through 2026, raising new questions about algorithmic bias and the need for transparent validation methods.

Key Figures and Entities

The Serious Fraud Office has emerged as the primary driver of change under Director Nick Ephgrave, who will step down in March 2026 midway through his five-year term. The SFO's refreshed Corporate Cooperation and Enforcement guidance establishes clearer expectations for voluntary self-disclosure, effectively offering a qualified path to Deferred Prosecution Agreements for companies that promptly report misconduct and fully cooperate with investigators.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has rationalised its investigations caseload, closing 100 historic cases with no action while raising the threshold for opening new investigations to focus only on those most likely to achieve "impactful deterrence." The FCA continues to enhance its data-led approach to early detection, particularly in market oversight and anti-money laundering supervision.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) gained substantially expanded powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, including the ability to directly determine consumer law breaches and impose significant penalties on both companies and individuals. The CMA can now obtain remote electronic information during raids and interview individuals unconnected to companies under investigation, significantly enhancing its cartel detection capabilities.

Legal and Financial Mechanisms

The centrepiece of the reforms is the new "failure to prevent fraud" offence, which came into force on September 1, 2025. The measure imposes strict liability on large organisations that fail to prevent fraud offences committed by "associated persons" intending to benefit the business or its clients. The only defence is demonstrating that reasonable procedures were in place to prevent such fraud.

The Procurement Act 2023, effective from February 24, 2025, introduced widened financial crime exclusion grounds and a public debarment list. Crucially, misconduct by any group company can affect the entire organisation's ability to bid for public contracts, even when the offending entity is not directly involved in the procurement process.

Further reforms are coming through the Crime and Policing Bill 2025, which proposes extending the senior manager attribution test—currently applicable only to economic crimes—to all criminal offences. This expansion would mean that where a senior manager acting within their authority commits any offence, the organisation would also be liable. The change could significantly increase exposure for companies across all sectors of their operations.

International Implications and Policy Response

UK authorities are deepening cross-border coordination through initiatives like the International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre and a new Anti-Corruption Prosecutorial Task Force with French and Swiss authorities. This enhanced cooperation provides real-time visibility on transnational corruption and enables faster progression of joint cases.

Despite shifting enforcement dynamics in the United States, the SFO maintains strong engagement with the Department of Justice, with shared commitment to voluntary self-disclosure frameworks and expedited resolutions of cross-border investigations. For multinational corporations, this creates more harmonised expectations on charging decisions and information exchange between jurisdictions.

The UK Supreme Court's 2025 ruling in El-Khouri v Government of the United States clarified that the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 only catches substantive money laundering acts committed within the UK. This decision simplifies compliance assessments for companies dealing with cross-border money laundering scenarios, though regulatory differences between the FCA and the new EU AML Authority will require careful navigation by businesses operating across borders.

Sources

This report draws on UK government legislation including the Crime and Policing Bill 2025, Procurement Act 2023, and Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. Additional sources include regulatory guidance from the Serious Fraud Office, Financial Conduct Authority, and Competition and Markets Authority, as well as court rulings including El-Khouri v Government of the United States [2025] UKSC 3.