Ben Swindale

A banker’s quincecare duty: practical implications of some recent judicial authority

In Barclays Bank plc v. Quincecare Ltd [1992] 4 All ER 363, it was held that “a banker must refrain from executing an order if and for as long as the banker is ‘put on inquiry’ in the sense that he has reasonable grounds (although not necessarily proof) for believing that the order is an attempt to misappropriate the funds of the company”.

Fraud Insights: Protecting shareholder rights through unfair prejudice petitions

Where the affairs of a company are being or have been conducted in a manner that it is unfairly prejudicial to the interests of a shareholder, or an actual or proposed act or omission would be so prejudicial, a shareholder can apply to the Court under section 994 of the Companies Act 2006 through what is commonly known as an unfair prejudice petition.

Fraud Insights: Worldwide freezing order continued despite allegations of delay

A recent decision of the High Court in PJSC National Bank Trust and PJSC Otkritie Bank Financial Corporation v Boris Mints and others [2019] EWHC 2061 (Comm) found that it was appropriate to continue a worldwide freezing order in circumstances where there was a good arguable case that the Defendants had used complex structures and methods, involving substantial sums of money, to defraud the Claimant banks despite the absence of any recent evidence of dissipation by the defendants.

Fraud Insights: Criminal sanctions for wilful and reckless mismanagement of pension schemes

In February 2019, the Government published its response to the consultation on Protecting Defined Benefit Pension Schemes – A Stronger Pensions Regulator (the “Consultation Paper”). Amongst the new proposed regulations in the Consultation Paper, the government said it intends to create a new criminal offence of wilful or reckless behaviour in relation to a pension scheme punishable by a maximum penalty of up to seven years’ imprisonment and/or unlimited fines.

The relentless rise of financial cybercrime

In recent years, political cybercrime has repeatedly made headlines. Yet amid a series of sensational stories stemming from alleged Russian hacking during the 2016 US presidential election, the media has largely overlooked a simultaneous surge in a potentially far more damaging global threat: financial cybercrime.