Clause 12
Fraud Bill [Lords]
5:15 pm
Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General & Shadow Spokesman On Community Cohesion, Law Officers (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I take the Solicitor-General’s point, but there is a difference between consent and connivance. Connivance, by its nature, implies guilty knowledge—that is how I always understand the word, given its ordinary meaning—whereas consent need not. It might be that there is a flaw in the Theft Act 1968, or it might be a problem that has never arisen, but it is at least possible, taking the strict technical meaning, that the body corporate commits an offence because one of its directors does so deliberately—so the dishonesty comes from that director—but several other directors consent innocently to the commission of that offence. In that case, as the clause is drafted, they could be caught with all the draconian consequences that flow from it. I have to accept that the reality is that the prosecutor probably would not prosecute them. However, if there is a way of avoiding the danger that they could be prosecuted, it might be worth considering, because they are not the people against whom the clause is, or should be, aimed.