After As the investigation into wrongdoing over the rigging of the Libor rate continues, international regulators have now uncovered evidence leading to the arrest of two executives at broker RP Martin, while another brokerage has been asked to provide information to the investigators. The ever-widening investigation has led to more people being dragged into the regulatory net, […]
After what has been described as a “complex and painstaking investigation” into the accounts, lifestyles and business practices of a couple of conmen, the UK’s first criminal convictions and prison sentences for a land banking fraud were secured last week. Omar Eshpari and Stefan Mitchell were sentenced to seven and six years respectively, having been […]
R v Waya – the UK Supreme Court judgment Written on 16 November 2012 by David Winch in 10 most popular this month, Case law, Confiscation, Fraud, Prosecutions. The Supreme Court judgment in the case of R v Waya in November 2012 may prove to be of profound significance in confiscation cases. This article discusses […]
Consider a self-employed consultant who claims compensation for loss of earnings as a result of a personal injury. Suppose that the Claimant earned £30k pa before the accident and but has earned only £15k after the accident, as evidenced by accounting records. On the face of it, the Claimant has a claim for loss of […]
…And Ask Yourself How You Feel About the Mental Image You Have Conjured Up. It seems likely that the giving of concurrent evidence by expert witnesses, so-called ‘Hot-tubbing’ is likely to become ever more common, not least because the experience of the courts is that it saves considerable judicial time and, as the Ministry of […]
Moylan J described the ostensible accuracy of private company valuations as being no more than a chimera whose purpose was to assist the court “in testing the fairness of the proposed outcome”. His view is shared by many judges and even the most robust forensic accountant would undoubtedly accept that the exercise of valuing shares […]
Forensic accounts are often associated with fraud, recovery of assets and finding cash in overseas accounts in criminal cases or locating where spouses have hidden assets in the divorce proceedings of the wealthy. But they are just as vital in scrutinising accounts when a business underperforms or fails. In these situations, there are often issues […]
The recent jailing of former UBS trader Kweku Adoboli for what the police describe as the UK’s biggest ever fraud, is in part due to the internal investigation launched in the summer of 2011 and headed by a forensic accountant. The accountant began his investigations but had his work cut out, as, having started in […]
The Insurance Fraud Bureau’s (IFB) statistics from earlier this month reveal that undetected general insurance claims fraud total £2.1bn a year, adding on average £50 to the annual costs individual policyholders face, each year. Following an investigation carried out by Northumbria Police, with the help of the IFB’s highly-sophisticated counter-fraud software, three men and two […]
Thanks to the diligence of investigative accountants, West Yorkshire Police were able to reveal yesterday (November 6th 2012) that they have increased the amount of cash taken though the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) every year since 2007 and last year doubled the amount taken from convicted criminals from £5.6m in 2010/11 to £12.3m in […]
This article by David Winch article considers what is meant by a defendant’s ‘available amount’ and explains some of the rules the court must follow in determining the ‘available amount’. In confiscation proceedings against a convicted defendant the Crown Court will ordinarily have to separately determine two figures – the ‘benefit’ obtained by the defendant and his […]
Amendments to the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 came into force on 1 October 2012, but what effect will these have on practitioners? The answer in most cases is likely to be ‘little or none’. It is now five years since the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 were introduced. HM Treasury believe that the regulations should be reviewed and […]
Prosecutors are sometimes tempted, unwisely, to strain the meaning of statutory provisions in order to charge a defendant. There have been a couple of successful appeals recently against money laundering convictions unders328 Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 where a defendant has been charged with “entering into or becoming concerned in an arrangement which he knows or […]
A London local authority is to crack down on rogue landlords using a law normally seen in fraud cases involving forensic accountancy expert evidence. Newham Council is to apply the Proceeds of Crime Act, originally aimed at stripping drug dealers of their ill-gotten gains, to seize money from people who charge desperate tenants a fortune […]
One NIFA member is aiming high in a bid to raise money to help adults with acquired brain injury. Forensic accountant, Roger Isaacs, is set to take one small step for him and one giant leap for the charity, Headway Somerset. Announcing his sponsored parachute jump, Mr Isaacs said he was ‘far too unfit to […]
Forensic accountants are being asked to brush up on a new version of the Experts Protocol published by the Civil Justice Council. The total rewrite, titled ‘Guidance for the instruction of experts to give evidence in civil claims 2012’, is aimed at helping litigants, those instructing experts and experts themselves, to understand what constitutes best […]
Forensic accountants are amongst a wide variety of experts being consulted over proposed changes in the way specialists are used in Family Court. Hot on the heels of an update of the civil experts code, the move is aimed at private law financial remedy proceedings and all other family court procedures where expert evidence would […]
Experts have given a broad ‘thumbs up’ to evidential ‘hot tubbing’ in Court in experiments that could soon be introduced in trials involving forensic accountants. The new practice, where experts give evidence in the witness box together, is claimed to save costs and allow disagreements between experts to be understood and resolved by the court […]
The use of experts in Family Court, to include forensic accountants, is to be curbed under new UK Justice Ministry proposals. As a report by Mr Justice Ryder on the operation of child proceedings is published, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, warns that too many experts are being wastefully used, particularly in child proceedings. […]
UK Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke QC has unveiled plans to allow cameras in Court for the first time in British legal history but it seems unlikely that forensic accountants and other experts will appear live on TV. Mr Clarke said the move was aimed at making justice more publicly accessible than ever before when television […]
Illegal fish catches cost nearly fifty million pounds in lost revenue, according to forensic accountancy evidence being considered by the High Court in Edinburgh. In a case that has become known as the ‘black fish’ scam, prosecutors are claiming that the company that helped quota dodging boat skippers land undeclared fish earned more than […]
Shareholders at global camera giant, Olympus, have voted in a new board after forensic accountants in Japan uncovered a one billion pound scandal involving the hiding of losses going back over twenty years. The company had nominated new members to the board after all its previous team quit in the wake of the scandal, […]
Judges and forensic accountants appear to be the professionals to watch for when it comes to keeping a close eye on business expenses, according to an article in the Irish Times on the latest consumer gadgets. It describes one expenses tracking app for iPads and iPhones in particular and calls on the consumer to […]
A row has broken out over allegations by former Irish Prime Minister Bertie A’Hern that an anti-corruption tribunal report “..had been arrived at without deploying the services of a forensic accountant..” The fomer Taoiseach’s statement came after a panel of enquiry investigating allegations of financial mismanagement concluded that Mr A’Hern had failed to give […]
The early origins of forensic accountancy have come to light from an unexpected source, the latest recruitment drive by the FBI to boost the number of investigators employed to follow the money and unearth evidence of modern crimes from terrorism to espionage, large-scale corporate frauds to the investigation of other complex financial schemes. It […]