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Multinationals at risk

10 November 2017
Issue: 7769 / Categories: Legal News , Bribery , Profession
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The new Criminal Finance Act may place ‘unmanageably onerous obligations’ on multinationals, barristers have warned.

Writing in this week’s NLJ, Nicholas Griffin QC and other practitioners at QEB Hollis Whiteman, note the ‘wide extraterritorial effect’ of the Act, which requires multinationals to foresee and prevent tax evasion risks on a global scale, and imposes criminal as well as regulatory sanctions.

Financial institutions with a branch in London will be ‘immediately liable for the acts of their associated persons on the other side of the world’, they write. ‘While this may have been entirely acceptable in the context of managing bribery risk—most corporates knowing what most forms of bribery look like—the perils are greater in respect of tax due to the considerably greater challenge in instituting, maintaining and enforcing “reasonable procedures” to prevent a spectrum of employee/agent misconduct which can in some quarters be as intricate and wide-ranging as the tax affairs they oversee.’ /p>

Issue: 7769 / Categories: Legal News , Bribery , Profession
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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Birketts—trainee cohort

Birketts—trainee cohort

Firm welcomes new cohort of 29 trainee solicitors for 2025

Keoghs—four appointments

Keoghs—four appointments

Four partner hires expand legal expertise in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Real estate team in Yorkshire welcomes new partner

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