Neil Hodge

1 week ago | complianceweek.com | Neil Hodge

To both clean up corporate behaviour and rack up its own enforcement record, the UK’s anti-bribery agency has seemingly largely guaranteed companies a pass from prosecution if they spill the beans on their misconduct. There’s only one problem: experts believe businesses may still stand a better outcome if they front it out rather than self-report and hope for a deal.

1 month ago | complianceweek.com | Neil Hodge

Antitrust infringement cases in the United Kingdom can run on for years, but there’s a question whether issuing fines that are dwarfed by the revenues of those organisations involved is a worthy deterrent—particularly if they are imposed over a decade after the misconduct ended. It’s also debatable whether the first company to admit that it has been part of a cartel for years should get away scot-free if it agrees to turn over all the dirt on the other members.

1 month ago | complianceweek.com | Neil Hodge

The United Kingdom’s latest effort to encourage regulators to pare down rules to attract companies and investment as a way to stimulate the economy has received mixed reviews from lawyers. That’s because the drive to scrap regulations not only brings into question which rules should be deemed defunct and why, but more importantly, whether the UK’s system of regulators acting as both watchdogs and market cheerleaders is conflicted and flawed.

1 month ago | complianceweek.com | Neil Hodge

The UK’s financial regulator has come under fire for its announcement that it is going to delete emails after a year in an effort to become a more “efficient” regulator, raising concerns that it might accidentally erase evidence in the process. Up until now, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has retained all emails as a matter of policy, with staff being responsible for marking emails that should be saved as important records.

2 months ago | rmmagazine.com | Neil Hodge

For the past few decades, the prospect of a trade war triggered by tariffs and other protectionist policies had never posed a serious risk to companies, but times have changed. With the United States announcing sweeping tariffs on all imports, as well as higher reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries, uncertainty remains about how, when and to what extent other countries will respond, while experts expect far-reaching and significant impacts to both businesses and consumers.