Free Webinar

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act
and its effects on shipping

About the Webinar

On October 26 2023 Parliament passed the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 which included a new offence of "Failure to Prevent Fraud" and importantly which is subject to a defence of putting in place Reasonable Procedures.  The new law follows a similar formula to similar failure to prevent offences for bribery and tax evasion.

Under the new offence, which has extraterritorial effect an organisation wherever incorporated and meeting two out of three of the following thresholds:
 
1) more than 250 employees and/or
2) more than £36 million turnover and/or
3) more than £18 million in total assets

will be liable where a specified fraud offence subject to UK jurisdiction (many of these can have fairly broad jurisdictional scope) is committed by an associate, e.g. an employee or agent etc. for the organisation’s benefit, and the organisation did not have reasonable fraud prevention procedures in place. It does not need to be demonstrated that company management ordered or knew about the fraud.

JOIN this HFW and Maritime London webinar to learn more about the new law and importantly what Reasonable Procedures steps shipping businesses may wish to consider to ensure that they may benefit from the defence. 

  • ABOUT HFW

    HFW are a leading global law firm in the Aerospace, Commodities, Construction, Energy, Insurance and Shipping sectors. HFW was founded over 140 years ago. We are unapologetically, true sector experts. Clients come to us because of our deep industry expertise and ability to think about the commercial solution first, and then underpin our advice with a solid foundation of legal expertise. 700+ lawyers and 185+ partners over 21 offices.

  • ABOUT MARITIME LONDON

    Maritime London is the industry-led body representing maritime professional services in the UK. Supported by its membership - companies and organisations from a wide range of disciplines - Maritime London works to ensure that the UK remains a world-beating location to base maritime related business and to conduct maritime trade.

  • Maritime London

    Webinar Host

  • Barry Vitou, Partner, HFW

    Barry leads HFW's Global Investigations and White Collar practice. Barry is one of the best known and respected lawyers in this field in London, his practice focusses on the representation of corporations and individuals in white collar criminal investigations and other internal investigations into suspected misconduct all over the world. Barry also advises clients on remediation of problems and compliance. His work is often cross border and Barry’s matters frequently involve non-UK law enforcement agencies.

  • Paul Dean, Partner & Global Head of Shipping, HFW

    Paul is Global Head of Shipping at HFW managing 200 specialist shipping lawyers across a worldwide network of 20 offices. Paul specialises in offshore and marine, focusing mainly on charter parties, bills of lading, shipbuilding, rig disputes, collisions, fire and explosion, salvage, general average, groundings, total loss, towage, seismic and limitation.

  • Moderated by Jos Standerwick, Chief Executive, Maritime London

    Jos Standerwick has been Chief Executive of Maritime London since 2017. He co-chaired a UK Government working advising on Financial Products for the Shipping Industry, sits on the UK government’s Clean Maritime Council, the Department for International Trade’s Thematic Services Working Group, the National Council of Maritime UK, the London International Shipping Week (LISW) Steering Group and chairs the LISW Conference Working Group. Jos is also a trustee of the Maritime London Officer Cadetship Programme.

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