Tax advisor crackdowns are coming and the new rules and risks leave no room for error
Tax advice used to be a risk for clients. Now it is a risk for the advisers. The ground has shifted: HMRC wants every tax-facing professional registered, visible and accountable, while prosecutors are finally using dormant corporate offences to target firms that fail to prevent tax evasion. Professional-services businesses can no longer assume that compliance […]
The £14 million reckoning: What the Capita breach says about the future of cyber enforcement
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined Capita and its pensions-services arm a combined £14 million for a 2023 data breach that compromised the information of around 6.6 million individuals. One of the largest UK data-protection fines to date, this is a turning point for regulatory enforcement. The message is clear: regulators are no […]
Fake cases, real costs: Law firm penalised for AI-generated citations
A UK law firm has been ordered to pay wasted costs after submitting an application that cited two fictitious, AI-generated cases: the latest in a growing line of courtroom embarrassments caused by unverified use of artificial intelligence. What happened? According to barrister Alexander Bradford of St Philips Chambers, the unnamed firm represented a former […]
When national cyber incidents break records, CEOs can’t stay outsiders
In October 2025, the UK government dropped a bombshell on corporate Britain: an extraordinary joint letter addressed to the CEOs and chairs of major firms. This wasn’t a polite nudge or a cordial recommendation but rather a demand for action. The cumulative message is this: the cyber threat landscape has shifted. Staying in “monitoring mode” […]
Chinese experts, Russian drones: What the drone case reveals about supply chain blind spots
A Reuters exclusive investigation has revealed that Chinese drone specialists have been working side by side with sanctioned Russian arms manufacturer IEMZ Kupol to improve its drone fleet. The Russian company, long blacklisted by the West, has played a critical role in supplying drones for the war in Ukraine, despite supposedly being cut off from […]
Xinjiang imports: The £800m supply chain scandal Britain cannot ignore
Handbags, bras, T-shirts, tomatoes, lawn mowers: what do they have in common? All are everyday items on British shelves that might very likely trace back to forced labour camps in Xinjiang. Almost £1bn worth of goods from Xinjiang, the Chinese region synonymous with forced labour and mass human rights abuses, have entered the UK […]
Care home director fined for ignoring subject access request
It’s one of the clearest rules in data protection: when someone makes a subject access request, you respond. You don’t block, erase, or conceal the records. Yet that’s exactly what a Yorkshire care home director did, and now he’s been fined. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has successfully prosecuted a care home director who […]
HMRC deals the first CCO prosecution just as ‘Failure to Prevent Fraud’ kicks in
HMRC has charged Bennett Verby Ltd, a Stockport accountancy firm, with failure to prevent the facilitation of UK tax evasion under s.45 Criminal Finances Act 2017. Six individuals, including a former director, were also charged in connection with alleged R&D tax credit repayment fraud. The defendants appeared at Manchester Crown Court on 7 August 2025; […]
Spain fights back against corruption: Will the new reforms work?
Corruption has once again been front-page news in Spain this summer. The scandals involving senior figures such as Koldo García, José Luis Ábalos and Santos Cerdán have sparked fierce debate about the state of public procurement, the role of political appointees, and whether Spain needs a new Public Integrity Agency. Will the reforms stick? […]
Britain’s big sick-out: What does record sick leave tell us about workplace wellbeing?
UK workplaces are facing a silent crisis. A new survey from the CIPD and Simplyhealth reveals that the average employee took 9.4 sick days in the past year – nearly two full working weeks. That’s a 62% increase on pre-pandemic levels, when the average was just 5.8 days. It’s the highest rate of sickness absence […]