It's important that businesses are aware of the latest regulatory and compliance developments, which could significantly impact how they operate and report. In this article, we break down the latest updates, explaining what they mean in practice and how your business can stay ahead of the curve.
The failure to prevent fraud offence contained in sections 199 to 206 of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 comes into force on 1 September 2025. Senior management need to consider what steps and procedures should be put in place, or review what is in place, to ensure that organisations have in place reasonable fraud prevention procedures so as to demonstrate clear, top-level commitment to rejecting fraudulent practices. Please click here for guidance for organisations on the offence of failure to prevent fraud.
The Department for Business and Trade has published its Small and Medium Sized Business Plan, setting out proposals to support small and medium sized businesses, including by tackling the late payment of business to business invoices. Please click here to read the plan.
Companies House has confirmed that the legal requirement, introduced under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, for new directors and people with significant control to verify their identity, and the 12-month transition plan for existing directors and people with significant control to verify their identity, will begin on 18 November 2025.
It's key that those persons who are required to verify their identity at Companies House do so before this date to avoid fines, noting that failure to do so could prevent them from being allowed to carry out their duties as directors.
In addition from that date, companies will no longer be required to maintain their own local registers containing information on their directors, directors' residential addresses, secretaries and people with significant control, and the ability for companies to elect to hold information concerning their officers on the central register will cease. Click here for guidance regarding when you need to verify your identity at Companies House.
The Competition and Markets Authority has published an update on its enforcement of the new rules on fake and misleading consumer reviews, as introduced by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. The new rules came into force on 6 April, but the Competition and Markets Authority allowed businesses a three-month grace period to adjust their systems for compliance, which expired in early July. Please click here to read the guide.
New guidance to help organisations avoid accidental data breaches when disclosing documents to the public has been published by the Information Commissioner's Office. The disclosure guidance addresses typical scenarios when an organisation should be checking documents for hidden personal information before disclosing them to the public or a specific individual, such as publishing documents online, sending documents to a customer and responding to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act. Please click here to view the guidance.
PISCES is a new type of regulated trading platform that allows shareholders in unquoted companies to trade existing shares in a controlled environment and on an intermittent basis - 'intermittent' being defined as occasional, not frequent, and of limited duration.
For further information, please contact the corporate team.
