Clive Coleman speaks on corporate criminal liability at London International Disputes Week

Our Senior Partner Clive Coleman speaks at Greenberg Traurig’s London International Disputes Week panel: “Corporate Criminal Liability: the Challenges of Expansion and Extra-Territoriality”. Clive joined Rebecca Meads and Alex Swan of Greenberg Traurig, Dan Rupprecht of Sky Discovery and Allison Clare KC of QEB Hollis Whiteman.

Things have changed significantly for corporates following the wide-ranging changes ushered in by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act and the recently enacted Crime and Policing Act 2026. Together the panel examined the legal, data protection and public relations implications of the rapidly evolving landscape of corporate criminal liability.

For Clive, the reforms represented both a “deepening” and a “broadening” of corporate criminal liability. The “deepening” arose with responsibility moving beyond the confines of the ‘directing mind and will of the company’, i.e. liability at boardroom level, to liability at senior management level. This is a very significant drop down and signals a fundamental change in how corporate criminal responsibility will be identified, investigated and prosecuted within organisations.

The “broadening” of liability lands in the wide range of individuals and entities whose conduct can now pull a company into a criminal investigation and prosecution. The acts of employees, agents, subsidiaries and individuals performing services for or on behalf of the organisation could all now bring the company, its board and senior leadership into criminal investigations. Clive said that the “directing mind and will” doctrine (or the ‘identification principle) had previously provided a shield from criminal liability for senior managers. That shield has now gone.

With the deepening and broadening of criminal liability comes a sharp increase in reputational risk for companies. A criminal investigation is a major reputational matter for a company. When it happens the company will need PR support in place that is experienced in crisis communications, knows the business, the stakeholders and the senior leadership team of the company, and has high level national and international press contacts who can be briefed on background where necessary. The Board and management will be scrambling to deal with the investigation and simply won’t have time to go ‘speed dating’ with three different new PR agencies. Clive drew the analogy with criminal investigations where there is a ‘golden hour’ after the crime in which to capture critical evidence. In crisis PR you have a short ‘golden period’ of perhaps a day, maybe two, in which to get onto the front foot to protect reputation.

There are a myriad of things to do during this period. These may include establishing a 24/7 press office, drafting holding statements, liaising with press, correcting factual inaccuracies in reporting, clarifying the company’s narrative and building a comprehensive PR strategy muscular and elastic enough to deal with fast moving events.

Clive stressed the importance of communications with a wider range of stakeholders, including investors, customers, clients and internal staff. Internal and external communications need to be in lockstep, and messaging must be consistent. No one involved in the company wants to be blindsided about an investigation by reading about it online or seeing in on television.

Criminal investigations into companies are not solely legal events. They can change and define a company’s good reputation that has been built up painstakingly over decades. As criminal corporate liability expands companies should be mindful of the need for a fast and effective communications response.