| Serious Fraud Office | |
| Abbreviation | SFO |
| Agency Overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1988 |
| Preceding agencies |
|
| Legal personality | Governmental agency |
| Jurisdictional Structure | |
| National agency (Operations jurisdiction) |
United Kingdom |
| Legal jurisdiction | England and Wales and Northern Ireland (not Scotland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands) |
| Constituting instrument | Criminal Justice Act 1987 |
| General nature |
|
| Specialist jurisdiction | Serious or complex fraud, commercial crime, fraud covering multiple lower level jurisdictions. |
| Operational Structure | |
| Agency executive | Richard Alderman, Director |
| Website | |
| http://www.sfo.gov.uk/ | |
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is an arm of the Government of the United Kingdom, accountable to the Attorney-General. Established by the Criminal Justice Act 1987, the Serious Fraud Office is responsible for the investigation and prosecution of suspected cases of serious or complex fraud where £1 million or more are involved or covers more than one national jurisdiction, though it is rare for cases involving less than £1 million to be taken. It has jurisdiction over England and Wales and Northern Ireland but not Scotland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands, though the Serious Fraud Office's compulsory information powers contained in section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1987 do so under invitation from the relevant prosecuting body. The SFO normally has a caseload of 80 ongoing cases taking on 30 to 40 new cases a year. The vast majority of fraud in the United Kingdom remains the responsibilty of police forces. The SFO is not a police force and its members have no direct personal executive powers, such as the power of arrest. Each case is dealt with by a case team made up of various professionals such as lawyers, forensic accountants and police officers seconded from police forces. The police officers remain members of their relevant police force for the duration of their secondmant and it is they who would arrest if the investigation required it. Only non-police members of the case team are permitted to use powers under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1987.
The SFO was established in 1988 after the Roskill Report recommended that this specialist duty be taken away from normal police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service. The report came in the wake of several failed prosecutions
The Director is Richard Alderman, a former prosecuting lawyer at the Inland Revenue, and later head of Special Civil Investigations at HM Revenue & Customs. Mr Alderman was appointed on 21 April 2008, replacing Robert Wardle.
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The SFO was involved in investigating allegations of corruption occurring at the arms manufacturer, BAE Systems, as part of the Al Yamamah arms deal. The enquiry was halted in December 2006 because of a claimed "...need to safeguard national and international security."[1]
The SFO was rebuked by the OECD in March 2007 for dropping this enquiry.[2] The UK is a signatory to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention which is aims to reduce corruption. If it is true that BAE Systems paid bribes as part of contracts, as is alleged, then this would be contrary to the OECD convention.
However, on 30 July 2008, the Law Lords overturned the decision by the High Court that the SFO had acted unlawfully by a vote of 5-0.[3]
Langbar International is a company that was listed on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange as Crown Corporation Limited in 2003 and is subject of the biggest share fraud on the Exchange to date. It is presently being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office[4][5][6][7][8][9] and the City of London Police and is also subject of many civil legal actions in the High Court.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]
Crown Corporation, which changed its name to Langbar International Limited in 2005, was a Pump and Dump fraud, in that the company did not have the assets that it declared at listing.[18][19][20]
Despite the fact that Langbar was at one time worth over $1 billion, a quarter of the value of Enron (where 21 people were guilty), and was supposed to be worth £375 million ($750 million) when the fraud was discovered in 2005, there have been no arrests so far by the Serious Fraud Office or the Police. The whereabouts of all those involved are known.
Private Eye, which often cites what it sees as toothlessness or incompetence on the part of the SFO, nearly always calls it the "Serious Farce Office" and others have dubbed it the "Seriously Flawed Office" for similar reasons.
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