Niall Hearty of Rahman Ravelli outlines the Serious Fraud Office's approach to supporting the economy
The Serious Fraud Office ( SFO) has announced plans to share data and train companies to combat economic crime as part of efforts to boost the UK economy.
The SFO said its new approach will help UK companies ensure they comply with new laws that make it easier to prosecute businesses for certain offences, such as fraud.
The agency believes that companies can play a role in preventing and identifying financial crime. So it is offering them free data sharing, insight into trends and analysis, and access to training on how to reduce the risk of falling foul of the law relating to bribery and other forms of financial crime.
The SFO has said it is trying to strike a balance between the "carrot and the stick" approach.
Its chief investigator, Michael Gallagher, said: "The SFO in particular, has a reputation of being solely an investigative and prosecution agency. But it's not our sole use. We also focus on harm to the public. We also focus on UK regulation and integrity. We're also focused on the economic prosperity of the UK, and we are very, very keen to collaborate with companies in the private sector to prevent bribery and corruption."
Gallagher told a conference in London that the SFO would even share anonymised case information to highlight the issues that can lead to bribery and corruption being committed. He emphasised that the agency had "shared interests with UK PLC."
Some recent legislation has, in theory at least, made it easier for the SFO to prosecute companies and the senior figures within them. For example, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 creates a new offence of failure to prevent fraud (which comes into effect on 1 September this year) and has made it easier to prosecute a company for the actions of its individuals.
The SFO has already said this year that it is open to the idea of reaching deals with companies that self-report their wrongdoing. This has been viewed as the agency's attempt to improve the relatively low number of such corporate settlements it has been achieving in recent years.
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