{"text":[[{"start":7.35,"text":"At a gathering of top white-collar defence lawyers this year, one issue was in the forefront: with America stepping back as the world’s enforcer of corporate behaviour, who will pick up the slack?"}],[{"start":18.45,"text":"Lawyers from Brazil to the Netherlands attending the annual American Bar Association conference in San Diego this March discussed their domestic prosecutors’ efforts and rated their national agencies."}],[{"start":30.799999999999997,"text":"The Brazilian and Dutch advocates gave their countries an eight. France scored a five. “I’m going to put it at about a three,” said Neil Swift, a London lawyer, referring to Britain’s Serious Fraud Office. “It’s a disappointing state of affairs in the UK at the moment.” "}],[{"start":47.849999999999994,"text":"While it is not unusual for a defence lawyer to beat up on a prosecutor, Swift’s verdict on the SFO was unsparing."}],[{"start":55.49999999999999,"text":"After years of reverses, the agency is facing perhaps the biggest challenge since its 1988 formation, as it seeks to rebuild its credibility and justify its existence in a new era of white-collar crime."}],[{"start":68.89999999999999,"text":"Many lawyers argue that the reputation of the City of London is among the issues at stake. “There is little incentive for large corporates to self-report corruption right now given the SFO’s poor success rate and the [US] Department of Justice’s retrenchment on white-collar crime,” says Jessica Parker, a lawyer at Corker Binning. "}],[{"start":87.64999999999999,"text":"The SFO’s plight is all the more striking because it began the year with high hopes. The agency, often lampooned as the “Seriously Flawed Office”, planned at least five large prosecutions, including against former executives of failed high street bakery chain Patisserie Valerie, and former listed companies London Mining and Petrofac."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":108.79999999999998,"text":"But in January, its director Nick Ephgrave abruptly announced his retirement halfway through a five-year tenure, citing personal reasons. Within days, it emerged that three more senior prosecutors were leaving."}],[{"start":121.94999999999999,"text":"In February, the Patisserie Valerie trial was delayed by two years, meaning the accused will face a courtroom 10 years after the investigation started. The London Mining case collapsed over problems with the agency’s evidence disclosure, which forced a review of a further 20 cases. "}],[{"start":137.75,"text":"Gideon Cammerman KC, who has defended clients prosecuted by the agency, describes many of the SFO’s failed prosecutions as “own goals”."}],[{"start":146.85,"text":"He adds that while complex fraud cases involving well-funded and sophisticated defendants are difficult to win, the SFO’s failures “are not merely a product of the difficulty of its task”."}],[{"start":159,"text":"Ephgrave, a former senior police officer and the first non-lawyer to be appointed SFO director, had been widely praised for upgrading the SFO’s systems and pursuing new cases more quickly. But he too has suffered setbacks, including the quashing of convictions relating to the manipulation of the Libor benchmark because of judges’ errors."}],[{"start":178.45,"text":"The SFO is also facing deeper, more structural questions. Shabana Mahmood, UK home secretary, unveiled plans this year for a new National Police Service to tackle fraud, counterterrorism and organised crime. "}],[{"start":191.7,"text":"The intention is to free up local police forces to tackle the everyday crime that most bothers the general public. But the move left many white-collar defence lawyers questioning why Britain needs the SFO, the Crown Prosecution Service, local police forces and now a National Police Service that will be merged with the National Crime Agency after the next general election, all pursuing fraud."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":214.39999999999998,"text":"“There was no reference made to the SFO at all,” said Christine Braamskamp, a partner at Jenner & Block, at the March ABA conference. "}],[{"start":222.89999999999998,"text":"“That begs the question of how those two agencies can integrate — or is this soft initial messaging to say, this [National Police Service] is going to take over the SFO?”"}],[{"start":null,"text":"

---

"}],[{"start":233.29999999999998,"text":"In 2014, then SFO director David Green was summoned to a meeting with the UK government’s anti-corruption tsar, Ken Clarke. "}],[{"start":241.35,"text":"Over a roast beef sandwich and glass of claret in Clarke’s office near Buckingham Palace, he bluntly informed Green that he’d “always thought the SFO was a load of crap”."}],[{"start":252.15,"text":"His narrative was hardly new. The revolutionary approach that underpinned the SFO’s launch — bringing prosecutors, investigators and forensic accountants under one roof — had quickly collided with the reality of pursuing prominent City figures with deep pockets. "}],[{"start":269.65,"text":"Early successes were overshadowed by costly setbacks, including failures to secure convictions of executives involved in share price manipulation at Blue Arrow, or of Ian and Kevin Maxwell over the disappearance of money from the Mirror Group pension scheme."}],[{"start":285.5,"text":"In 1998, former BBC journalist Mark Killick wrote that the SFO had “generated admiration and contempt in almost equal measure” during its first 10 years of operation."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":298.05,"text":"One of its biggest challenges has been the complexity and duration of cases. On average it takes more than four years to reach a first outcome, such as a decision to press charges, close a case or start talks over a settlement. "}],[{"start":312.05,"text":"Last July, the SFO charged six individuals over an alleged pension fraud, eight years after opening an investigation. The agency’s most recent US-style deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), over corruption allegations at Ultra Electronics, took a similar time. Such deals suspend a criminal prosecution, based on certain conditions, which can include paying a fine or helping to prosecute individuals."}],[{"start":337.45,"text":"“We deal with the most complicated cases. That is the whole reason why we exist,” says Emma Isaac, the SFO lawyer running the pension case. “And because of that, there will be different challenges that we do have to deal with.” "}],[{"start":351.7,"text":"John Gibson, a defence lawyer at Michelman & Robinson and former senior SFO prosecutor, says that corporate probes involving large amounts of data “are now pretty well unprosecutable” under disclosure legislation, which obliges prosecutors to hand over any evidence to the defence that could undermine its case."}],[{"start":370.59999999999997,"text":"“You have to narrow the scope of investigations to be successful,” he says."}],[{"start":376.09999999999997,"text":"For Green, extended timescales also reflect the resources involved. The targets of its investigations “can go to City law firms who will put 100 lawyers on the job, as money is no object,” he says. “In this respect the SFO can often find itself outgunned, although no SFO director would ever admit to it.”"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":396.45,"text":"The average SFO case involves about 5mn documents. The largest case on its system a year ago had 48mn. In the face of rapidly evolving technology and cryptocurrencies, the task is daunting. "}],[{"start":410.7,"text":"Whitehall has tried to help its cause by making the failure to prevent bribery and fraud criminal offences in 2011 and 2025, respectively. The US-style DPAs came into effect in 2014."}],[{"start":423.3,"text":"Still, the SFO’s record has remained lumpy. Only one of the 19 individuals prosecuted as a result of DPAs has been convicted, and it emerged this week that the SFO is not pursuing any individuals over Ultra’s crimes."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

---

"}],[{"start":438.1,"text":"Ephgrave was a man in a hurry when he became SFO director in September 2023, opening two investigations and directing his first dawn raid within two months. "}],[{"start":448.55,"text":"In his first speech in February 2024, he proclaimed that the SFO had “gone through more front doors in the last three months than in the last three years”."}],[{"start":458.6,"text":"“I felt maybe we’d lost a bit of edge [globally],” Ephgrave told the FT in his final interview as director, which took place in March. “So [I had] a big sort of focus on outreach, reoccupying that premier league status as an anti-corruption, anti-bribery enforcer.”"}],[{"start":473.75,"text":"The agency has worked with authorities in the US, Portugal, France and Switzerland, and hosted a first-of-its-kind conference in London for economic crime agencies across the world this week."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":486.3,"text":"Early wins included charges against former executives of Glencore, and opening an investigation into French defence technology giant Thales."}],[{"start":495.8,"text":"More recently the SFO successfully prosecuted Jose Alejandro Zamora Yrala, founder of aircraft parts supplier AOG Technics, for fraudulent trading and secured guilty pleas from three former directors of Ethical Forestry, a tree-planting investment scheme."}],[{"start":511.2,"text":"Following Ephgrave’s departure, interim director Graham McNulty has launched an investigation into three companies suspected of using a government home insulation scheme to defraud energy companies. "}],[{"start":523.3,"text":"Such developments “show the difference that they’re [the SFO] making,” says Ellie Reeves, the UK’s solicitor-general, who is responsible in government for the agency. One former senior US DoJ official says he was “very impressed with Nick”, adding that “he brought a boost of pace that, candidly, we didn’t always see at the SFO”. "}],[{"start":544.5,"text":"But the agency’s detractors say Ephgrave focused on low-hanging fruit. “Although they’re doing more things, kicking more doors in, they seem to be the smaller, simpler cases rather than the bigger investigations into British PLCs,” says Christopher Houssemayne du Boulay, a defence lawyer at Hickman & Rose who represented a defendant in the collapsed London Mining case."}],[{"start":564.8,"text":"The SFO’s current roster of investigations includes a suspected UK property investment fraud, as well as a potentially fraudulent timeshare scheme."}],[{"start":574.5,"text":"“They’re refocusing on things that frankly could be dealt with by police, regional organised crime units or other investigating agencies — probably because the SFO has fared so poorly in big cases recently,” adds Houssemayne du Boulay. "}],[{"start":588.85,"text":"“If it’s just doing what other smaller bodies can do, then you do question what’s the point of the SFO in the overall law enforcement structure?”"}],[{"start":null,"text":"

---

"}],[{"start":597.2,"text":"The poor performance throughout its history has seen the SFO face down multiple threats of closure in the past. "}],[{"start":604.3000000000001,"text":"Theresa May, who served both as home secretary and prime minister between 2010 and 2019, tried three times to combine it with the NCA. "}],[{"start":613.95,"text":"“The NCA was May’s creation and legacy at the Home Office. Its weakest link has always been the Economic Crime Command,” says Green, the former SFO director. "}],[{"start":625.2,"text":"“May wanted to cure this by rolling the SFO into the NCA . . . [but] the real answer was and is to do exactly the reverse: to roll the ECC police investigation and monitoring resource into an expanded SFO.”"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":640.6,"text":"Reeves, the solicitor-general, suggests there are no immediate plans to merge agencies. “Obviously, the SFO prosecutes the most complex and most serious instances of fraud, often things that cross jurisdictions,” she says. “But I’m very supportive of all measures that the government is taking to tackle fraud and white-collar crime.”"}],[{"start":659.85,"text":"Swift, the lawyer who criticised the SFO so strongly at the San Diego conference, says something has to change to ensure the UK does not lose further ground."}],[{"start":669.1,"text":"Some have speculated the SFO’s record could improve if the government proceeds with its plans to abolish jury trials for complex fraud cases from 2028 onwards, because judges may be less sympathetic to alleged fraudsters and more accustomed to complex evidence than juries."}],[{"start":690.25,"text":"Ephgrave is hopeful legislators will consider allowing regulators and investigators to make payments to whistleblowers, saying that since 2012 more than 700 UK whistleblowers have taken tip-offs to US law enforcement agencies, which do pay for information. Many also hope that a review of disclosure legislation will result in fewer collapsed prosecutions. "}],[{"start":714.15,"text":"But Gibson, the former senior prosecutor, says the agency must ensure its survival by lifting its ambitions, especially given that US white-collar crime prosecutions are at their lowest level in at least four decades. “The only country left with a long-reach jurisdiction over international corruption is the UK.”"}],[{"start":733.25,"text":"Since taking office last year, US President Donald Trump has pardoned dozens of white-collar criminals and paused enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for six months. The US DoJ lost a quarter of its lawyers in the 13 months to January. "}],[{"start":751.8,"text":"But over 60 per cent of the SFO’s 28 public cases are focused on domestic fraud and most involve little-known entities. The agency says it can only pursue the cases that are brought to it, but critics argue it has considerable discretion and receives many more referrals than ever become public."}],[{"start":771.4499999999999,"text":"“The SFO must hunt tigers, not swat flies,” says Gibson. “If the reality is that the agency has realised international corruption cases are just too difficult, someone must ask: ‘Is the SFO in its current structure serving the purpose it’s really meant for?’”"}],[{"start":788.1999999999999,"text":"Letter in response:"}],[{"start":790.15,"text":"Australia’s masticating marsupials and the SFO / From Walter Goe, Sydney, NSW, Australia"}],[{"start":802.5999999999999,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1778858171_3803.mp3"}