INDUSTRY FOCUS
Should fraud reporting be levelled up with rules around money laundering?
New research is underway to understand the current fraud landscape and explore whether reporting it should be made compulsory and levelled up with laws surrounding money laundering.
Perpetuity Research has been commissioned by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and the Fraud Advisory Panel to conduct a survey aimed at fashioning a better understanding of fraud reporting by organisations in England and Wales in order to ascertain whether there’s a case for the mandatory reporting of fraud.
At present, there’s no legal requirement in England and Wales for a company to report fraud, a direct contrast to money laundering, where those operating in the regulated sector have a duty to raise a Suspicious Activity Report should the activity of money laundering be suspected.
Although there are a number of bodies to which suspected acts of fraud can be reported, among them Action Fraud, there’s generally a low level of reporting from organisations for a variety of reasons, not least the fear of reputational damage to the business concerned.
Some countries have already implemented the mandatory reporting of fraud and the research aims to help understand the exact impediments to reporting fraud and how they might be overcome. As such, the research will focus on two main research questions: ‘What barriers currently exist that might limit the mandatory reporting of fraud by organisations?’ and ‘What can we learn from other jurisdictions that have made the reporting of fraud mandatory?’
The short anonymous survey is available to complete online and can be accessed here.
The deadline for responses is 5.00 pm on Friday 2 July.
All information gathered will be used solely for the purposes of this piece of research. At the end of the survey, all participants will be offered the opportunity to receive a copy of the findings and take part in a follow-up interview.
