Deception Diaries

Fraud can be any kind of dishonesty or theft, like:

• where money has been stolen from you (by a present or ex-employee, or an unknown third party, like a hacker and in a cyber attack situation;
• where an agent has been taking secret commissions;
• where directors take money from the company when they shouldn’t be;
• where someone has lied or misrepresented something, which causes you loss;
• authorised push payment frauds;
• scams;
• greenwashing

We can act in tandem with the police to target fraud, and can offer a parallel (or substitute) route to recovery via the civil, not criminal, courts. Recovery is often quicker via this route, and puts you in the driver’s seat. Depending on your organisation, you may also need to report the matter to a variety of organisations, and we can assist you with that.

You need to act quickly and seek advice as soon as possible, Our specialist cyber response team can help you from the get go.

Sometimes. These rules apply to APP frauds (authorised push payment fraud) – a fraud where you authorise a payment out of your bank account, but it turns out you were deceived into doing so by a fraudster. If that is the case, you bank will have to reimburse you up to £85,000 if you are an individual, microenterprise or a charity, within the UK.

Some banks are also part of a voluntary scheme where they seek to return funds if they are able to locate them, through the inter bank recovery process. This is quite complicated and completely voluntary, and again, depends on a number of factors, including cooperating banks. We can help you figure out the best way to get your stolen money back. Read our article on Authorised Push Payment fraud.

Yes – under new law coming into effect on 1 September 2025, certain organisations can be liable for failing to prevent fraud within its organisation. Under this new offence, if a fraud is committed by an “associated person” with an intention to benefit the organisation, the organisation could be criminally liable. The defence to this offence is if the organisation had “reasonable” fraud prevention procedures in place. Recent guidance issued by the Government provides 6 guiding principles for what “reasonable” fraud prevention procedures could look like. For advice on how this offence applies to your organisation and what fraud prevention procedures to put in place, please contact us. 

In addition to the new failure to prevent offence, there is a new offence in force now which creates additional liability for an organisation where a fraud offence is committed by a “senior manager”. Unlike the failure to prevent fraud offence, there is no defence for having prevention procedures in place, although it is likely to be helpful to do so. 

We can provide support as to how this offence applies to your organisation and what to do when you suspect a senior member of your organisation may have committed fraud. Check out our latest article on the UK's latest guidance around failure to prevent fraud offence.

When you suspect that fraudulent activity may have taken place within your organisation, in most cases you will want to consider carrying out some type of investigation.

The decision of whether to investigate suspicious activity or not is not a simple, and there are a number of key questions including:

1. How did this happen?
2. What is the extent of the issue?
3. How serious is it? 
4. What do I need to do protect my organisation in relation this fraud and/or future fraud?

There are different complex factors to consider when setting up and carrying out an investigation. We offer different levels of support for internal investigations, tailored to the needs of our clients and the type of investigation being considered. We can also leverage the breadth of specialisms available within Mills & Reeve to ensure that you are receiving a full suite of advice including employment, data protection, asset recovery and regulatory considerations. We also provide training, materials and guidance on how to carry out internal investigations.