SFO strategy details new pilot programme – but leaves some questions unanswered

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has vowed to push ahead with its plan to pay rewards to whistleblowers and develop a new “pilot programme” to thwart fraud, bribery and corruption, according to its new strategy published today. 

The strategy document, which details its ambitions for the next five years, outlines the agency’s plans to “combat crime effectively through intelligence, enforcement and prevention” and make sure the SFO is “a proactive, authoritative player in the global and domestic justice system”. 

“This means playing a greater role in the national effort to tackle fraud, this means ensuring that SFO cases progress at a faster rate, this means taking bold and pragmatic decisions on our casework and, finally, this means being seen as the partner of choice domestically and internationally,” Nick Ephgrave, the SFO’s director, said in the report. 

The prosecutor said it will look to improve the tools it already has, “from helping corporates to more easily self-report to working with other law enforcement agencies on covert capabilities”, as well as deploying new powers, such as the failure to prevent fraud offence.

It also said it will test new prevention methods, including “a pilot programme” that will work with “partners to cut serious fraud, bribery and corruption off at the source”. 

The agency also reaffirmed its ambitions to “explore incentivisation options for whistleblowers” and “continue to push for a disclosure regime that is fit for today’s challenges”. 

Sam Tate, head of white-collar crime at law firm RPC, noted the director’s desire to engage with industry on crime prevention through the new programme. 

While there were limited details about the programme, Tate told City A.M. that “there is a lot of appetite to work with the SFO, particularly in relation to the new failure to prevent fraud offence”.

But he said we will have to wait and see how many of these ideas can actually be implemented. 

“Many areas are outside of the SFO’s direct control, including how much funding it receives, civil service pay bands, legislation to incentivise whistleblowers and of course changes to disclosure in criminal cases,” he said. 

Nick Barnard, a partner at Corker Binning, highlighted the agency’s ambition to develop a  “highly specialised, engaged and skilled workforce”. The SFO has struggled with staff retention in recent years, and he told City A.M. that this issue “must be resolved if high-profile failures of the kind which dogged the Osofsky era are to be avoided”. 

The document still left some questions unanswered when it comes to tackling corporate crime, however, according to Louise Hodges, a partner at Kingsley Napley. 

“A big question mark for me is which type of organisation the SFO sees as its target,” she told City A.M. “So far, the investigations opened under the new director have involved relatively small and unknown businesses, some already in administration, and are a far cry from the global giants and high street names that the SFO historically had in its sights.”

Barry Vitou, a partner at law firm HFW, told City A.M. that while the strategy paper was “encouraging”, at the end of the day “people will judge the SFO not by what it says it will do, but by what it does.”