Bosses could be prosecuted for fraud committed by staff

The Attorney General, Jeremy Wright, says the government is pushing for new laws to expand current "failure to prevent" offences, which only cover bribery and tax evasion, in a bid to "promote a culture of corporate responsibility".

Under the proposed criminal finance bill, bosses will be held liable for crimes committed by staff such as money-laundering, false accounting and fraud.

The move is among measures to tackle “boardroom excess” that new Prime Minister Theresa May has set out as a central thrust of her premiership. Ministers are also working on plans to place workers' representatives on boards and impose binding votes to curb excessive corporate pay.

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Wright added: "When considering the question 'where does the buck stop?' and who is responsible for economic crime, it is clear that the answer is to be found at every level, from the boardroom down."

Lawyer Barry Vitour, a specialist in fraud and white-collar crime, told The Times that the present regime "makes it practically impossible to hold corporate boards to account for misconduct because evidence of that misconduct must be found at the highest level."

Tom Hayes, a former trader who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for the Libor fraud at the investment bank UBS, has questioned the clampdown, saying that despite having evidence that benchmark manipulation was company policy, the Serious Fraud Office declined to question his bosses.