As COVID-19 forces more and more of our daily lives into cyberspace, how well regulated is the digital realm, and how can criminals exploit its grey areas? In this blog, originally from our On Digital Trust publication, Professor Nicholas Lord explains how criminals exploit the murkiness of the digital space to siphon off and launder […]
Furlough, fraud and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
The Government-implemented Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) supports companies in their attempts to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic, permitting them to place employees on a temporary leave of absence known as ‘furlough’, and claim state aid to pay furloughed staff either 80% of their usual wages or up to £2,500 per month, whichever amount is […]
Profiting from pandemics: COVID-19, changing routines and cyber crimes
The COVID-19 crisis is driving changes in the routines of institutions and individuals, as businesses, educational institutions and other organisations recommend or require employees to engage in social distancing in a collective attempt to minimise the spread of the virus. As well as having global socioeconomic effects, these changes in routine create opportunities for crimes. […]
Trouble in Paradise – Corporate Vehicles and Contemporary Tax Avoidance
Yesterday news broke on the so-called ‘Paradise Papers’, a leak of 13.4 million files detailing the financial behaviours of individual and corporate elites, including questionable financial arrangements facilitating the avoidance of tax liabilities – Dr Nicholas Lord (The University of Manchester), Dr Karin van Wingerde (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Prof Liz Campbell (Durham University) outline […]
HSBC – A criminological perspective on ‘the bank of tax cheats’
Last week BBC Panorama and the Guardian newspaper, following international collaboration with various other media organisations, broke news of how Britain’s biggest bank, HSBC, aided some of its wealthiest clients in evading tax. Here, Dr Nicholas Lord analyses why it is that otherwise ‘good people’, in the context of business organisations, indulge in such ‘white-collar’ […]
Will new enforcement tool help the Serious Fraud Office secure its reputation and ‘justice’?
It’s been a difficult few years for the UK’s beleaguered Serious Fraud Office (SFO), writes Dr Nicholas Lord. As the authority responsible for the investigation and prosecution of corporate corruption in international business, it’s been blighted by a lack of prosecutions, collapsed cases, failed investigations and data loss. But while the introduction of Deferred Prosecution […]