Re-cast identification doctrine reform expands to all crimes under Crime and Policing Act

The Crime and Policing Act (the Act) received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026.  When the Act comes into force, corporations could be liable where a senior manager commits any criminal offence in a significant expansion of the new identification doctrine first introduced under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA).  We wrote about these proposed changes in May 2024. 

Re-cap on how we got here

Prior to the ECCTA, the identification doctrine was a common law concept which attributes criminal liability to a corporation where it can be established that, at the material time, an individual was the "directing mind and will" of the company or "the embodiment of the company". This was a high threshold to meet, particularly in corporations with more complicated management structures.

Under ECCTA, the identification doctrine was re-cast to attribute criminal liability to a corporation where a senior manager commits certain economic offences, provided they are acting within the actual or apparent scope of their authority. However, the scope of this new statutory liability was limited to specific economic crimes such as fraud, bribery and concealing criminal property. You can read more about senior manager's liability under ECCTA here.

What will change?

Under the Act, the scope of potential corporate liability will be expanded to all criminal offences where a senior manager acts within their actual or apparent scope of their authority. There is limited guidance on what conduct would be captured by the concept of a senior manager's "actual or apparent scope of their authority", but there is guidance suggesting this does not mean that the senior manager must have been specifically authorised to carry out the specific offence in question. Sole traders and partnerships are excluded from the scope.

The term "senior manager" is broadly defined by reference to their role in decision making, management or organising of activities under both ECCTA and the Act. This means that whether an individual falls within the definition of a senior manager will be fact specific and cannot be determined by job title alone, for example.

The organisation will not be liable where the senior manager’s conduct took place wholly outside the UK, unless the organisation itself would have been guilty had it carried out the acts constituting the offence in the location in which they occurred.

What should organisations do now?

Organisations should be taking the following steps:

• conduct a review to determine who could potentially fall within the definition of "senior manager" under the Act;
• review, stress test and monitor existing fraud and other crime prevention controls to determine whether these are adequate in light of the new regime (see our article on the 'Failure to Prevent Fraud' offence here);
• any changes to fraud and other crime prevention policies will need to be embedded through a programme of training and attestation which incorporates periodic testing of understanding; and
• ensure boards are fully briefed and trained on the changes due to come into force under the Act.

To find out more about any of the issues mentioned in this article, please contact Sonya Zywko.