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The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) today launched new guidance, stating for the first time that if a corporate self-reports suspected wrongdoing and co-operates fully with investigators, it can expect to be invited to negotiate a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) rather than face prosecution, unless exceptional circumstances apply.
At a legal conference in London, SFO Director Nick Ephgrave introduced new corporate co-operation guidance that will make it simpler for corporates to report suspected wrongdoing by a direct route to the SFO’s Intelligence Division via a secure reporting portal.
The guidance also provides greater clarity on what the SFO views as ‘genuine co-operation’, including preservation of digital and hard copy material, presenting the facts on suspected criminal conduct and early engagement with the SFO on any internal investigation. The guidance also gives examples of what the SFO views as uncooperative conduct, including attempts to “forum shop” by unreasonably reporting offending to another jurisdiction for strategic reasons and attempts to minimise or obfuscate the involvement of individuals.
In return, a self-reporting company can expect the SFO to:
Nick Ephgrave QPM, Director of the Serious Fraud Office, said:
We are determined to lead the fight against serious and complex fraud, bribery and corruption at home and side by side with international partners. Our new guidance sets out how corporates can report suspected criminality to us and what we expect from cooperating corporates.
If you have knowledge of wrongdoing, the gamble of keeping this to yourself has never been riskier.
The new guidance comes amidst a push by the SFO to optimise its operating environment to tackle top-tier criminality, including by advancing plans to incentivise whistleblowers, supporting reform of outdated disclosure practice, trialling new technology and setting up a taskforce to tackle international bribery and corruption with key partners.
https://www.wired-gov.net/wg/news.nsf/articles/SFO+sets+out+route+for+businesses+to+avoid+prosecution+24042025130500
A fraudster who swindled more that £77,000 from a primary school has been told she has to pay back all of her ill-gotten gains.
Wendy Gill abused her position and 'betrayed' colleagues at a Midlands school to pocket the huge amount of cash over six years.
Now, she has to sell her home in order to raise the funds and hand all the money back.
Recorder Samuel Skinner ordered she pay back the entire amount by July 13 during a proceeds of crime act hearing.
He said: "The benefit figure is £77,395 and the available assets are the same."
Gill admitted fraud by abuse of position and was locked up for two years and one month last year.
Government proposals to curb multibillion-pound benefit fraud involve “tools of an Orwellian surveillance state” and could put people through “absolute hell”, MPs have warned.
The Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill seeks to allow the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to recover money directly from fraudsters’ bank accounts and have the power to obtain bank statements from people they believe have enough cash to pay back welfare debts, but are refusing to do so.
Courts could also suspend fraudsters’ driving licences following an application by the DWP, if they owe welfare debts of more than £1,000 and have ignored repeated requests to pay it back.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/national/24907279.mps-raise-concerns-orwellian-powers-crack-benefit-fraud/?ref=twtrec
What are the 5 key things you need to know?
Our previous blog on this topic (found here: Fraud: ‘failure to prevent fraud' offence - KPMG UK) set out the background to the new ‘failure to prevent fraud’ offence contained in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (“ECCTA”). As a one-line recap, this is where an organisation can be prosecuted under the ECCTA (potentially resulting in a fine) if a fraud is committed by an associated person, for the organisation’s benefit, and the organisation did not have ‘reasonable procedures’ in place to prevent the fraud.
https://kpmg.com/uk/en/home/insights/2024/11/government-guidance-for-failure-to-prevent-fraud-offence.html
The much-anticipated new corporate criminal offence of failure to prevent fraud was introduced by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.
Its commencement was conditional on the government publishing guidance and that was issued on November 6 2024, and a regulation was laid before parliament on the same date that will make the offence effective from September 2025.
https://www.ftadviser.com/financial-fraud/2024/11/13/the-net-has-drastically-widened-for-corporate-criminal-liability/
Big businesses have nine months to implement fraud prevention procedures, with the Serious Fraud Office director warning that “time is now running short for corporations to get their house in order”.
Today, the Home Office published its guidelines on the offence of failure to prevent fraud.
UK authorities tasked with preventing fraud "seem not to care" about the people caught up by the fraud, MPs have been told.
At a summit held by the all-party parliamentary group on investment fraud and fairer financial services yesterday (October 31) in Portcullis House, Margaret Snowdon OBE was scathing about the lack of joined-up thinking between various UK authorities and a lack of co-ordination in pursuing the criminals.
Elie Taktouk’s default sentence finally enforced: 8-year term imposed for failing to pay a £4.5 million Confiscation Order
Recovering proceeds of crime from fraudsters can be immensely difficult. The latest asset recovery statistical bulletin records that the value of confiscation order impositions in the financial year ending March 2024 was £307.9 million, yet only £128.5 million was recovered, falling by 28% compared to that which was recovered in the last financial year.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has recovered a further £295,000 from Virendra Rastogi, now known as Vareen Kumar or Veerain Kumarr, who was convicted for an international metal trading scam.
The money was recovered from two pension funds as part of an ongoing proceeds of crime investigation into Rastogi’s assets, which has recovered nearly £6 million to date including from the sale of his Marylebone home and via the seizure of money and assets including valuable watches.
Virendra Rastogi, whose company was advised by political grandees, was jailed in 2008 for a £1bn fraud through a business empire that was ‘rotten to the core’
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/fraudster-loses-pension-pot-to-confiscation-order-20-years-later-z0fz8c6tz#:~:text=The%20pension%20pot%20belonging%20to,Office%20(SFO)%20to%20date
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