Businesses in the UK should be considering how a new ‘failure to prevent’ fraud offence should be accounted for in their compliance programmes and contracts, experts at Pinsent Masons have said.

Tom Stocker, Andrew Sackey and Rachel Trease of Pinsent Masons said it is apparent that an offence of organisational failure to prevent fraud will be provided for in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, which is currently in the final stages of being passed in parliament, despite the fact MPs and peers have yet to agree on the scope of the offence. While the Lords have pushed for the offence to apply widely, the Commons, driven by the UK government’s policy position, wants to limit it to just ‘large organisations’.