AFB Practice Roundtable: How to Implement the UK’s New ‘Failure to Prevent Fraud’ Offence

The ‘failure to prevent fraud’ offence was introduced by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.   The Government issued Guidance on the offence in early November 2024 and confirmed that the offence will come into force on 1 September 2025.  The guidance provides advice on the fraud prevention framework and procedures that organisations should put in place. In addition, there is also industry guidance here for the financial services sector.

This practice roundtable, in partnership with A&O Shearman will consider the steps that financial services organisations should be taking to assess their fraud risk and implement reasonable fraud prevention measures.
 

Why attend?

The roundtable will provide members with an opportunity to discuss how to implement an effective fraud prevention framework, having regard to the Government guidance. 

AFB will circulate an agenda and a series of questions to attendees in advance which will be used to aid discussions.

The roundtable discussion will be facilitated by Eve Giles, UK Head of Investigations & White-Collar at A&O Shearman, with valuable insights from Calum Burnett, Global Co-Head of Litigation & Investigations, and Sarah Hitchins, Contentious Regulatory partner. The roundtable will be an open and dynamic discussion involving attendees considering best practice in the industry and how to manage fraud prevention effectively and pragmatically.

The facilitated discussion will cover the following topics:

• Identifying and assessing the risk of fraud covered by the ‘failure to prevent fraud’ offence
• Mapping the fraud risk against existing control frameworks
• Introducing reasonable and proportionate measures to address gaps
• The impact of culture and governance on fraud prevention
• The merits of a holistic approach to financial crime compliance
• Documenting fraud prevention procedures
• Considerations for investigations and dealing with regulators

The Chatham House Rule will apply to this event to encourage open dialogue and discussion.

There will be refreshments and networking from 15:30 before the roundtable discussion commences at 16:00.

Please note that capacity for the roundtable is limited to 30 members and one person per member bank.

Who should attend?

This roundtable is aimed at Compliance, Risk and Legal teams.

Speakers

Calum Burnett, Global Co-Head of Litigation & Investigations

Calum specialises in contentious regulatory work and has very extensive experience of acting for financial institutions in high profile, complex regulatory investigations, both domestically and cross-border. He also has experience of acting for institutions in Serious Fraud Office investigations.

Calum has advised major financial institutions across a very broad range of regulatory issues, including market abuse and insider dealing, AML and anti-bribery and corruption, mis-selling, fraud, cyber security breaches, operational resilience, non-financial misconduct and other cultural issues, regulatory reporting and a broad range of other types of systems and controls failings. He also represents senior individuals in regulatory investigations.

Eve Giles Eve, UK Head of Investigations & White-Collar

Eve specialises in advising on high profile criminal and regulatory investigations and other corporate crime issues. She has a broad range of expertise, advising on cases involving international and national corruption, tax evasion, antitrust, cartels, money laundering, fraud, insider dealing, market abuse, misleading the market and misconduct in a public office and misconduct in the workplace (including #me too allegations).

Eve regularly advises in cross border investigations and acts for both individuals and corporations across a broad range of sectors including financial services, mining, energy, infrastructure, telecommunications, life sciences, defence, retail, transport, aerospace, commodities, construction and engineering. She is very experienced in acting for senior individuals in high profile investigations, including executive and non-executive directors, GCs and compliance team members, including MLROs.  She is also an experienced criminal trial litigator (securing wins in the LIBOR, Operation Elveden, Torex and and BA/Virgin price fixing trials) and has defended a number of cases at trial against the UK SFO, FCA, CPS and the CMA.

Sarah Hitchins, Partner Litigation and Investigations

Sarah is a Partner in our Litigation & Investigations group, where she specialises in advising firms on regulatory and internal investigations involving the most high-profile and sensitive issues, including those involving the FCA, where she previously completed a secondment in its Enforcement Division.

She has significant experience of advising on and conducting UK and cross-border investigations involving a broad range of issues, including individual accountability, remuneration adjustments, governance, risk management failings, systems and controls issues, market abuse/conduct, operational resilience incidents, conduct risk failings, whistleblowing, cultural issues and non-financial misconduct. The results of internal investigations that Sarah has led on these topics are often shared by firms with the FCA and/or the PRA.

Sarah had advised and supported a number of firms in relation to a significant number of Skilled Person Reviews, including those relating to governance, culture, whistleblowing, individual accountability, financial crime, systems and controls issues, oversight failings, risk management failings and alleged fraudulent conduct.

Logistics

Fee:        Included in AFB membership (no fee)

Venue:     A&O Shearman, One Bishops Square, London E1 6AD

Date:        Thursday 20 March 2025

Time:       16:00 – 17:30 (arrivals and refreshments from 15:30)

If you would like to submit a question or have any specific areas that you would like the session to address, please send them to AFB at secretariat@foreignbanks.org.uk
You will receive details on how to join this session a week before the event.