UK Updates Fraud Laws

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

31 May 2005

The UK government announced last week that it had created a new offence of general fraud, as the centrepiece of the Fraud Bill, which was presented to the House of Lords on Wednesday and published on Thursday.

According to the Home Office, the new offence, which would carry a maximum sentence of ten years, can be committed in three ways:

• By false representation. An example of the type of act covered by this offence would include “phishing”; or the act of disseminating an email to large groups of people falsely representing to be a legitimate financial institution in order to can gain access to others' personal financial information;
• By failing to disclose information. For example, a solicitor who fails to share vital information with a client within the context of their work relationship, in order to make a gain from his client, would be committing an offence; and
• By abuse of position. This offence would cover a situation where a person employed to care for the elderly or disabled, takes advantage of his position of access to their accounts in order to remove money.

In a statement, the Home Office explained that:

"The aim of the Bill is to clarify the current statutory offences, which are very specific and overlapping. This means it is not always clear which offence should be charged, and defendants have successfully argued that their particular deceptive behaviour did not fit the definition of the offence with which they had been charged."

The amended Fraud Bill will also introduce the new offences of:

• Obtaining services dishonestly. For example, a person who tenders an improperly obtained credit card to obtain services over the Internet would be committing a crime under this offence;
• Possessing articles for use in frauds. This would make it an offence to possess, manufacture or supply equipment, such as a computer programme that can generate genuine credit card numbers, to be used to commit or facilitate fraud; and
• Participating in fraudulent business. This offence extends the existing offence of fraudulent trading by incorporated bodies to businesses other than companies.

Home Office Minister Fiona Mactaggart explained that:

“The introduction of a general fraud offence will improve the criminal law in a number of respects. It will simplify the law, making it clearer to juries and the general public as well as making the prosecution process more effective by providing a clear definition of fraud. Our aim is to encompass all forms of fraudulent conduct, with a law that is flexible enough to deal with developing technology, allowing us to bring more offenders to justice.”

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