Financial Crime Time is our quarterly round-up of news making the headlines in the world of financial crime and compliance. Our aim is to give you an easily digestible, bite-sized overview of issues that are of interest and which may affect your business. Topics covered in the latest edition include:

• The corporate offence of failure to prevent fraud, which came comes into force in September
• The first criminal prosecution of the failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion offence
• HMRC's announcement that it is conducting a further 11 live corporate offence investigations
• The quashing of city traders' convictions of for interest rate rigging offences have their convictions quashed
• The SFO bringing of charges by the SFO in £75m pension investment fraud case
• The recovery by the SFO of £1.1m following its first use of an Unexplained Wealth Order
• The Office of Financial Sanctions' releases its Implementation Annual Review 2024/25
• HMRC's secures first successful conviction for promoting tax fraud on social media.

Our Tax Bites newsletter provides monthly bite-sized updates from the tax world, including recent news and case reports. The November edition explores recent guidance and policy papers from HMRC, including:

• Guidance on upcoming changes to umbrella company PAYE rules
• Guidance on how digital platform operators should report sellers' information to HMRC
• Guidance on Research and Development tax relief claims
• Policy paper on the tax treatment of Cryptoasset Exchange Traded Notes
• New pages in its International Exchange of Information Manual listing reportable jurisdictions for Digital Platform Tax Reporting.

The October 2025 edition of our VAT update highlights recent news and case law developments. The Chartered Institute of Taxation has raised concerns over repayment interest imbalances, and HMRC has clarified rules on late input tax claims and revised VAT cash receipts upwards by £2.4bn. Notable cases discussed include: the Supreme Court’s decision in Prudential Assurance v HMRC, which confirms that VAT is due on success fees invoiced after leaving a VAT group; Isle of Wight NHS Trust v HMRC, where the supply of locum doctors was held VAT exempt; and Bottled Science Ltd v HMRC, with permission granted to appeal the VAT treatment of a collagen drink. These cases clarify VAT grouping, exemptions, and product classification.

Earlier this year the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) issued guidance for companies on corporate self-reporting and cooperation in investigations. It is of particular relevance when seeking a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA). In our recent article for Financial Regulation International, we look at the guidance and the key provisions outlined, and its potential impacts.

In this episode of Taxing Matters, Alexis Armitage, Senior Associate in RPC’s Tax Disputes team, is joined by Jivaan Bennett of Temple Tax Chambers. Jivaan brings nearly 15 years of international experience in tax, commercial transactions, and disputes, having worked across the Caribbean, London, and New York.

Together, Alexis and Jivaan discuss the complexities of tax deed claims in the context of corporate transactions, offering practical insights for both lawyers and businesses.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has published significant new guidance on how, when and why, it evaluates corporate compliance programmes, offering important insight for companies when implementing and operating their financial crime controls.

Our Tax Bites newsletter provides monthly bite-sized updates from the tax world, including recent news and case reports. In the December edition we look at a number of case reports, as well as updates from HMRC including:

• updates to HMRC guidance for financial institutions who report information using the Automatic Exchange of Information
• updates to HMRC guidance for the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS)
• updates to HMRC's International Exchange of Information Manual
• the recent policy paper which warns employment agencies and employers of new tax fraud models.