and we'll talk to arun chauhan from the uk's fraud advisory panel about how to stop it happening to your business. plus, is the fraud coming from within? fiddled expenses are costing businesses billions. andi mcneal from the association of certified fraud examiners tells me how to spot the difference between a real expense and a con from within the company. and later in the show, who's winning — the remote working brigade or the people who want you back in the office? i've got mark dixon, the boss of the world's biggest co—working space company, iwg, to tell us how the big post—pandemic power struggle is working out in the real world. wherever you'rejoining me

from around the world, once again, a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. business fraud is one of the biggest costs to global companies, big and small alike. and in the last few months here in the uk, some high—end food producers have fallen for a scam. it began with the london—based cheese company neal's yard dairy. it received an order for more than $400,000 - that's £350,000 - worth of handmade cheddar cheese. now, that's a lot of expensive cheese, because that's the wholesale value. it would sell in a shop for far more. it was supposedly for a french supermarket chain. the dairy was asked to deliver it to different locations around

london, from where the cheese disappeared, and so did the buyer and any payment. neal's yard took the hit, paying its suppliers in full, much to the relief of the family—owned companies which made the cheese for it. that amount of cheese and that much money could ruin us if it went, and so we're really grateful to neal's yard for paying for the order. they're the ones who've taken the hit, but it could have been terrible. it was sold to neal's yard at wholesale price. it's a very big order, but if it was sold as it would be through a cheese shop, you're looking at over £500,000 worth of cheese. the capital's food scene rallied to the cause. even celebrity chefs chimed in their support on social media. 22 tonnes�* worth of the best cheese in the world has gone missing. so for all the newspapers and journalists out there — come on, get behind this. support our guys. it's the great cheese robbery. then a similar scam struck again, a few miles outside of london. this time, the scammers were after smoked salmon from a small high—end smokehouse in newmarket. i got an email early august, um, from someone pretending to be the buyerfor a french supermarket. he said that he had heard of our product in the french market, and it had a good reputation, which seemed relatively plausible,

and he wanted substantial quantities of smoked salmon supplied as a frozen line. i had a quick look at the range that that supermarket was offering, and i thought, "that seems like a fit, actually". and because it was frozen, we were able then to produce in stages and it was doable. so, isaid, "yeah, i think we can do this." it was going to be one of several orders. so the first one was 2.6 tonnes of long sliced smoked salmon weighing exactly one kilo — half with the skin on, half with the skin off. so it was very specific about the specification, which was very plausible. and then every 21 days, he was going to ask for about four tonnes. so we got the first order together. the stock value to us was £28,500, roughly. so it was a considerable order, and also, because we were not organising transport and we weren't having to do all the customs

paperwork and pay all the customs agency charges, it was a really good bit of business for us, but, obviously, too good to be true. the penny dropped for me on friday, 11th of october. i said, "when are we going to be paid? "because we need that before we release the second one." and the email came back saying, "we're going to pay for the first order "and the second order together "when the second order is released." i contested this. i said, "that's not what we agreed." and i thought, "that doesn't really sound like a supermarket. "it doesn't sound credible." and it was then the next day that i started to do more digging and realised that these people were fraudsters and that i had been conned. i felt incredibly embarrassed, ashamed, gutted for everybody

here because everybody was super excited. you know, we'd really, really worked so hard to make sure we could do this and do it properly. the amount of care that had gone into each side, quality control, making sure everything was... had the perfect colour, perfect trim. there's a lot of love in that product, and then, obviously, the staff knew that this was not going to happen. i mean, ifelt physically sick, literally, for a day or two, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, and everybody here was very, very distressed. it's a huge hit financially, and, you know, in terms of your morale, it's really difficult. we're now bouncing back. we've got some distance on it. we've got christmas ahead. we're going to crack on. we've still got legitimate orders

going over to france and to spain, so that's fine. but it takes a lot to recover from something like that, and i've said to people that when you get an enquiry, which comes as a straight line to you, whether through email or phone, take the enquiry, look at it, but then immediately seek to verify that by going round and looking at it from a different angle. so if, for example, an enquiry comes by email from any supermarket or any big buyer, whether it's uk or eu or abroad, then try and phone the main switchboard and ask to be put through. so don't believe everything in the email. immediately verify elsewhere. a scam like this can be devastating for a business, especially if you're small or medium—sized. but fraud is happening every day, so what can businesses do about it? well, my next guest is a lawyer and part of the uk's fraud advisory panel, a group of leading experts from the field of policing, law, and criminology, which aims to prevent, detect, and deter financial crime. arun chauhan, thank you for talking business with me today. put it into context for us — how big an issue is fraud for small business right now? thanks, tadgh. well, fraud for all types of business, but particularly small businesses, is a really big issue right now. they are often running on tighter profit margins and therefore their focus day in, day out is driving that

business forward, winning new work, retaining work. so what kind of damage have you seen it do to small businesses? i've certainly seen on investigations of fraud for small businesses, we've dealt with situations like large redundancies. we've seen the odd business closure, which is typically coming out from the large cybercrime type of attack. we've seen a real loss of customer confidence. we've seen a real loss of confidence in the business owners themselves. it's a horrific thing to happen to somebody where you're... ..you've been duped. is there a particular trend or a type of fraud that is growing at the moment, something that you think businesses really need to be aware of?

for any business, wherever you are, it's really important to...to recognise the threat of impersonation. that seems to be the fraud type that's really growing. it's either impersonating your business to take credit for your business from others and dupe those other parties, who then come in looking to you for some money, or they're trying to trick you out of your money, out of your data, or out of your products. we've seen stories in the press where people are having their stock and their goods diverted by what they thought were legitimate customers or purchasers, but actually they're fraudsters

posing as legitimate enterprises. so impersonation�*s one of the big things, and that links to cybercrime. cybercrime is prevalent. there's lots of attacks across the globe on lots of businesses around issues such as denial of service, where criminals using cyber attacks are stopping your it systems from working, or they're planting malware to be inside your systems to see the type of transactions you make or access your bank. so we're seeing those are the prevalent issues. sadly, i also still see a lot of internalfraud, usually from long—standing employees. that...that is a picture i know is played out across the globe as well. now, you mention impersonation fraud as one of the biggest new trends. i can't help but wonder, is al playing into, facilitating that? it's a really good point. ai is certainly facilitating it. it's interesting because right now we have lots of fraud prevention solutions that are trying to use ai and use it successfully, but criminals are quite quick to adopt new technology, and they are adopting ai. the way they're doing it is there's a kind of a classic fraud called a ceo fraud, where a ceo, or seemingly a ceo,

or a senior person in the business will phone somebody in finance and say, "can you make this payment? it's very urgent. "0verride the controls. get on with this payment." and those voices coming down to someone in finance are from an ai—generated output. so arun, what are the key things you would recommend to businesses to protect themselves? the first thing and the most important thing for me is verification. make sure you know who you're dealing with. who are the people? are they real people? make sure you understand, you know, where they are. is it a genuine address, the type of address you'd expect at the business you're dealing with? do their financial records stack up? you know, if you can look at local data to show, is it a legitimate company?

do they have the finances? are the same people you're speaking to involved in that company? and proximity is where, you know, fraudsters gain. they know they don't meet people face—to—face. so if there's a chance to meet who you're dealing with, do that. when you get to the transaction stage, just send a test payment. you don't have to send the whole amount straight away. make sure the money goes to the person you genuinely think it needs to go to. so there's that whole verification stage, but certainly with new relationships where fraud has taken place, i think people could learn from, you know, who approached who? if you've had a good deal presented to you, just think "who approached me?" and then think, how well do you really understand the transaction? is it your core business, or is it something on the side of your business? how well do you know it? and also look at insurance products.

there's lots of insurance products to help businesses recover some losses from fraud, and those products also give you tips on how to prevent fraud. so they're really worth looking at and exploring. arun chauhan, thank you forjoining us. thanks, tadgh. well, it's notjust external threats that businesses face when dealing with fraud. one of the most expensive costs is fraudulent expenses from people working inside companies. there have been some high—profile crackdowns recently on small expense fraud — reports of people at banks and social media companies getting let go over a dodgy expense for a bowl of pasta or sandwich. but scams from within cost global business around 5% of profits. my next guest knows exactly how to spot a dodgy expense form. she's the chief training officer for the association of certified fraud examiners. andi mcneal, thank you forjoining us on the programme. just explain for us how big a problem expenses fraud is for the businesses that you work with. sure, thank you so much for having me. we know that expense fraud is a significant risk for businesses around the world. probably the most common is when an employee charges personal expenses to the company's credit card or purchasing card. that happens quite frequently in these types of cases. but we also see examples of things like employees creating completely

fictitious expenses, creating fraudulent documentation to request reimbursement for an expense that never occurred, maybe recording the same expense twice. so, it really runs the gamut, and a lot of it has to do with what is available to them to exploit within that expense process. and where do you draw the line on what's serious and what's not serious? say, for example, squeezing a friend into the bill for a working lunch, for example.

that's a great question, and it can be very hard to draw the line. you know, a single act that kind of walks that ethical line of, as you mentioned, maybe bringing a friend along to a business lunch, maybe that's not completely against company policy, even. but i think the really important thing for companies to understand is we see expense fraud kind of as a gateway fraud, in a lot of circumstances, where once somebody realises they're able to get away with something small, it leads them to take larger risks. and our research actually shows that those that engage in expense fraud are often not only defrauding the company through that mechanism. a lot of times, they will be stealing in other ways, as well. and that goes all the way up to the largest cases of those executives in enron, worldcom, tyco, those large scandals where they were not

only cooking the books, they were also running large personal expenses through the organisation as their personal piggy bank. under what circumstances are people who perpetrate expenses fraud most likely to get caught? right, we see some extreme cases where individuals are doing things like charging spa days. we've heard of employees taking their entire family to disney world on the company dime, paying for pet grooming, things like that. and in those situations, ideally, the company will catch them very, very quickly, because they are obvious they're not business expenses. but the reality is that even those schemes can succeed in organisations where there's large gaps in their defences. now, i see from your data that men account for 75% of expenses fraud cases. why is that?

the easy answer is that it's a very large reflection of the global workforce. obviously, in regions where we see the workforce made up of more men than women, we see more individuals that commit fraud tend to be men than women, right? there's also some behavioural factors at play that have some interesting ramifications that we've discovered. so, for example, men tend to steal larger amounts than women when they do start to go down the path of fraud. they are more likely to exploit their relationships with others as part of their schemes, whereas women are usually trying to solve a personal financial problem, and they're working alone. so, even when men and women are committing fraud, it often looks different, they're often doing it for different reasons, and they often are doing it to a different extent. very interesting patterns there. and do you see it across all levels within a company, both seniors and juniors? we do see it across all levels, but the most cases that we see happen at the mid—level. those mid—level managers, those in supervisory capacities that maybe aren't at the senior levels.

and that kind of makes sense. we know fraud is a crime of opportunity. if someone's crossing that ethical line, they will often exploit whatever opportunities they can find. and in most organisations, the purchasing transactions, the expense transactions are often concentrated in the mid—level of the organisation. these days, we're looking at everything through the prism of artificial intelligence, and i wonder if you think ai can help fight fraud, or is there a risk that it could enable fraud by, say, for example, helping to fake invoices, for example? yes, and yes. i think it's helping on both sides of the equation, absolutely, and with some successes for each group. faking invoices is a clear—cut example of how those perpetrating fraud are using the technology to their benefit. there are also underground markets that peddle information on how to use these technologies to more effectively defraud your organisation, which isjust fascinating to see from a theoretical perspective.

but on the positive side, we're seeing successes with organisations using ai as well. the ability to continuously monitor every single expense transaction in real time and immediately call out the ones that are problematic so that somebody can jump on that and potentially stop it in its tracks is an enormous step forward in terms of detecting and preventing the harm from these types of frauds. andi mcneal, from the association of certified fraud examiners, thank you for talking business with me today. thank you so much. coming up after the break — the man with one of the best eyes on whether we're returning to the office or not. the boss of the world's biggest flexible office company lets us know who's winning — the remote workers or the office bunnies. see you soon. welcome back to talking business with me, tadgh enright. the global pandemic changed work. shutting down cities, most office work was done from home, raising the question, why on earth people should go back to a commute and a nine—to—five when they can do it all perfectly well from their kitchen? but, as we all know, there's been a power struggle since the end of the pandemic.

many employers want people back under their nose. many workers would prefer to stay away. well, that's proved helpful for my next guest, who runs international workplace group, the biggest supplier of hybrid working space — or coworking — in the world. mark dixon, chief executive of international workplace group, thank you for talking business with me today. before we get on to talking about trends in the office sector, our programme this week is also discussing the impact of fraud on business. i wonder, with a business of your size, operational in so many countries, what kind of experiences you've had with fraud. fraud, or attempts at fraud, are something that, every year, we end up investing more into the protection from it. so, cyber attacks, fraud attacks are becoming more and more common. and, look, it's all about having a team focused on it and investing in it. but you have to expect that every day, you will find a new group trying to get into your systems. ok, let's talk about

the office sector. and i wonder if you think we'll ever go back to the scale of office—based working that we had before the pandemic? clearly not. i mean, look, it's... the pandemic was a catalyst for change in workplace, but the actual facilitator and the real catalyst is technology. so, technology changed the workplace 5—10 years ago, and it's changing it today all the time on a daily basis. it's becoming much easier for people to work remotely. the technology gets better, and the need to commute for the reasons that you used to do so — to go to where the equipment was and to collaborate — it's still important for collaboration, but not as important now for many to use equipment.

so, your office is pretty much run by microsoft these days, and your office can be just about anywhere. so it's a very practical thing, driven by technology being adopted by many companies on a larger or smaller scale. and, no, it categorically won't go backwards. as you say, the pandemic was a catalyst for a change that was already under way. and i wonder if you think the future is going to look even more hybrid — or will we see more headlines like we see repeatedly now, with more employers demanding their employees come back into the office? again, we come back to this highly nuanced question, and the sort of pr battle that's going on where people are discussing what is a fundamental change in the way companies can work and people can work. again, it comes back to management and leadership. the necessity to have everyone in the same place at the same time is less of a priority these days. what you offer is flexible, but on a kind of per person, per day basis. how do your costs compare to a more conventional

office—renting situation? we have studies on this, and it's what our customers are interested in, so, yes, it's the first thing they look at. 0ur cost is about half the cost of a permanent solution. now, the mathematics of that are all about only paying for what you use. to give us an example, i mean, if you use a hotel room for a couple of weeks in london or new york, it's a much lower cost than having an apartment for the whole year in london or new york. so, pay—per—use makes it a lot more interesting price—wise. so, about half the cost on average for companies. now, when many people think of shared office spaces, they think of a particular company. and often, it has to be said, it's not yours, it's wework. they have far more brand

recognition, i think it's fair to say, but obviously their own share of problems, as well, problems involving cost control. there are many analysts out there who say it would make perfect sense for your companies to merge. is that something you've looked at, or considered? they are a much smaller company today than they were in those heady days of 2019. erm, but, yes, i mean, look, we consider all options as we move forward. you know, this is about notjust the company you mentioned, but many other companies where it makes sense to consolidate markets. so, they are there, there are many others. mark dixon, from international workplace group, thank you very much forjoining us on talking business.

look, what i would say to them is business is a very serious undertaking and what you want is the best people in your team and you want the best tools and support you can get for that team to get maximum productivity. and, it is ok to have ideas in coffee shops, but if you really want to get that idea in gifted working and build your business, you're going to need a base to do that and you need many bases, hopefully to expand from after that and remember, when i saw people doing business in coffee shops, i was in the coffee shops with them. so, basically, it is a good place for brainstorming not to run a business from. mark dixon, from international workplace group, thank you very much forjoining us on talking business. pleasure, thank you very much. well, that's it for this week. i do hope you enjoyed the show.

don't forget, you can keep up with the latest on our global economy on the bbc website or the smartphone app. you can also follow me on social media. i'm @tadghenright. thank you for watching. see you again soon. bye— bye. hello there. after what's been a pretty mild start to november, it looks like the second half of november is going to turn very much colder with our first real taste of wintry weather expected as we head into next week, with the chance of some snow and ice which could cause some disruption. now, for sunday it looks like that cold air is already across northern scotland bringing further wintry showers certainly to the hills here. but some brighter skies across northern and eastern england too but thicker cloud for northern ireland pushing across the irish sea into wales and the midlands will bring outbreaks of rain here. but again, quite a contrast in temperatures from north to south across the country. still some mild air looming here.

now that mild air stays in place across the south, cold air to the north, and we start to see an area of low pressure sliding in off the atlantic and that will bring increasingly wet and windy weather across the board. but as this rain bumps into the cold air across the north we'll likely see a swathe of sleet and snow across central and northern areas. this is how monday is shaping up now, bright with some sunshine across northern and eastern parts with further wintry showers across northern scotland. northern ireland, increasingly england and wales, will see the clouds build and outbreaks of rain will continue to push on from the west turning heavier as we reach the second half of the day. again, quite a contrast in temperatures from north to south across the country. but as we move into monday evening we will start to see some sleet and snow develop across northern ireland and then in towards southern scotland and northern england as that rain bumps into the cold air. we also have further accumulations of snow across northern scotland with these snow showers. it could be that this area of rain could be a bit further southwards, in which case have to cater for a little bit of snow for north wales and perhaps

even the north midlands. but as we head into the early part of tuesday it looks like that sleet and snow might continue to affect parts of northern england so some tricky driving conditions across the high routes of the pennines to start tuesday. again, quite a contrast in temperatures from north to south across the country to begin tuesday. as we move through tuesday, though, eventually that low pressure pushes off into the near continent, opens the floodgates to an arctic northerly and that will send the cold air right across the country with frequent snow showers pushing into northern areas. but draped around all coasts. so we will continue to see very cold weather, quite a lot of sunshine further inland, a cold might as well with a significant risk of frost and ice. that's it from me, take care.

jinping on saturday — the final meeting between the two leaders before mr biden leaves the white house. they met on the sidelines of the apec summit in lima, peru. mr xi described the relationship between china and the us as having "ups and downs" but that it plays a key role in shaping global stability. he said that china is willing to support a smooth transition when us president—elect donald trump takes office injanuary. the comments follow mr trump s pledge to introduce significant tariff hikes on chinese goods, as well as take a tougher diplomatic stance towards beijing. during the meeting, president biden reflected on his relationship with mr. xi while in office. we haven't always agreed but our conversations have always been candid and always been frank. we have never kidded when another for the i think thatis when another for the i think that is vital. these conversations prevent

miscalculations and ensure the competition between