By Simon Bushell, Sean Finn and Daniel Smith

The fallout from the Panama Papers continued with the publication of a further consultation by the UK Government on its proposed corporate tax evasion offence.  The offence will introduce criminal liability for organisations who fail to prevent their associated persons from facilitating tax evasion, including employees, subsidiaries, professional advisors or any other person performing a service on their behalf. 

The proposed offences will have a broad extra-territorial reach.  UK businesses may find themselves liable not only for their failure to prevent facilitation of tax evasion domestically, but also for foreign tax evasion offences. Overseas companies will similarly be caught where they fail to prevent facilitation of UK tax evasion, or foreign tax evasion where part of the offence takes place within the UK.