THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE Act 2011 identifies categories of white-collar crimes, and enhances powers to gather evidence. These powers can particularly affect innocent businesses in the financial sector, whose records may disclose part of the money trail in financial crime.
The categories of crime in the Act range across banking; investment and financial activities; company law; money laundering; fraud; bribery and corruption; crimes against consumers, or using electronic equipment or data, and may be extended to include competition and revenue offences.
…The 2011 Act creates a new offence: withholding information, where a person fails, without reasonable excuse, to disclose promptly to the Garda information he knows or believes might be of material assistance in preventing a white-collar crime or in apprehending or convicting a white-collar criminal.
Businesses, intermediaries and advisers will all need to be vigilant to assess unusual transactions, apparent anomalies, and unexpected developments they come across, in case these might contain “information of material assistance”.
Detailed news link: here
Direct link to The Criminal Justice Act 2011: here