Category Archives: Serious Fraud Office

Crown court backlog in England and Wales ‘could hit 100,000 without radical overhaul’

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Chief inspector raises prospect of judge-only trials and greater use of magistrates to reduce prosecutors’ caseloads

The backlog of cases in crown courts in England and Wales could hit 100,000 unless radical action is taken to overhaul the criminal justice system, a watchdog has said.

Anthony Rogers, the chief inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Serious Fraud Office (SFO), said prosecutors’ caseloads were already beyond what had been seen before and he feared the situation could deteriorate.

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SFO and mining firm ENRC agree settlement over legal claims

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Agency had been investigating Kazakh company for suspected corruption and fraud over 12 years

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Kazakh mining company Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation have agreed a settlement to end one part of a years-long legal battle.

The agency had been investigating ENRC for suspected bribery and fraud in Africa and Kazakhstan, which the mining company denied. But the SFO dropped its decade-long investigation last year without bringing charges, citing insufficient admissible evidence.

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Foreign Office official floated idea of giving honour to fixer for Saudi royals

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Salah Fustok alleged by UK prosecutors to have been a middleman for nearly £10m in payments to Saudi prince

A Foreign Office official floated the idea of giving an honour to a businessman who was later alleged to have helped facilitate millions of pounds of bribes to a Saudi prince and his high-ranking associates.

Salah Fustok was alleged by UK anti-corruption prosecutors to have been a middleman for nearly £10m of payments to Prince Miteb bin Abdullah and other Saudi officials as “an inducement or reward” for the awarding of a contract by the Saudi Arabian national guard.

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‘Deniable fiddle’: the MoD, Saudi Arabia and a scandal half a century in the making

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Revelations about payments by Ministry of Defence are culmination of decades of British deal-making with Saudis

The revelation that the Ministry of Defence paid millions of pounds to a firm that would later be accused of being a conduit for secret payments to high-ranking Saudi officials is the culmination of a scandal that has been half a century in the making.

The £8m paid from an MoD bank account between 2014 and 2017 was in connection with a large defence deal, Sangcom, first struck in the 1970s.

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MoD signed £8m deal with firm later alleged to be conduit for secret payments to Saudi prince

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Project Arrow contract signed amid scramble to keep on track £1.6bn defence deal and ran until at least 2017

The UK Ministry of Defence paid millions of pounds to a company later alleged to have been a conduit for secret payments to high-ranking Saudi Arabian officials including a member of the royal family.

The MoD payments, worth £8m, were made under a contract codenamed Project Arrow that ran until at least 2017, according to documents that surfaced in a criminal trial.

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Two men acquitted of bribing Saudis in huge British defence deal

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Jury acquits Jeffrey Cook and John Mason after lawyers argue payments were authorised by UK and Saudi governments

Two men have been acquitted of paying bribes totalling millions of pounds to high-ranking Saudis after they argued that they had been unfairly prosecuted.

Jeffrey Cook and John Mason had been accused of bribing a Saudi prince and his associates to secure and maintain a huge defence deal for a British company. But on Wednesday, a jury in London acquitted them after lawyers argued the payments had been authorised by the British and Saudi governments.

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Serious Fraud Office drops 10-year corruption inquiry into Kazakh miner ENRC

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UK agency also shuts other high-profile cases including Rio Tinto investigation

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office has abandoned a criminal investigation into the Kazakh mining group ENRC, ending a decade-long corruption inquiry mired in controversy.

The SFO updated its website on Thursday with a notice that it had closed the case after concluding there was “insufficient admissible evidence” to prosecute the company.

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Serious Fraud Office chief found to have made errors over major corruption trial

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Independent review criticises Lisa Osofsky personally after two businessmen’s convictions were overturned

Britain’s most senior anti-bribery prosecutor has been personally criticised in an independent review that examined flaws in a major corruption trial.

Lisa Osofsky, the director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), was judged to have made a “number of mistakes and misjudgments” in her handling of a prosecution which has ultimately resulted in the convictions of two businessmen being overturned.

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Tory donor’s oil firm admits employees paid bribes to get contracts

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Petrofac made admission as part of deal to end four-year corruption investigation by Serious Fraud Office

A multinational oil firm, which was led by a major Conservative donor, has admitted that its employees paid bribes to land contracts, as it struck a deal to end a corruption investigation into the company.

The admission was announced by the firm, Petrofac, on Friday to settle a four-year corruption and money laundering investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.

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The UK has been linked to Congo’s ‘conflict minerals’ – where are the criminal charges? | Vava Tampa

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Swiss court ruling is not the first time plunder of DRC’s mineral wealth has been linked to the killing of Congolese people. Without accountability, it won’t be the last

According to the Swiss federal criminal court last week, the corruption destroying the Democratic Republic of the Congo – where devastating conflicts over minerals used in our electronics have killed more than six million people – is inextricably linked to the UK, Gibraltar and Switzerland.

It was a significant moment exposing corruption that has fuelled not only grinding poverty, famine and unemployment in DRC but also the impunity and violence required to sustain it. Yet, unless there is accountability, it won’t change.

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Amanda Staveley in tears as Barclays lawyer accuses her of ‘hustle’

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Businesswoman is seeking £1.5bn from bank in high court action over £2bn Qatari loan

A businesswoman embroiled in a £1.5bn high court battle with Barclays broke down in tears after bank bosses accused her of engaging in a “hustle”.

Amanda Staveley has made complaints about bank bosses’ behaviour when negotiating investment deals during the 2008 financial crisis.

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Airbus to pay record £3bn in fines for ‘endemic’ corruption

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UK court sanctions fines after firm admits using agents across world to bribe officials to land high-value contracts

Airbus, Europe’s largest aerospace multinational, is to pay a record £3bn in penalties after admitting it had paid huge bribes on an “endemic” basis to land contracts in 20 countries.

Anti-corruption investigators hailed the result as the largest ever corporate fine for bribery in the world after judges declared that the corruption was “grave, pervasive and pernicious”.

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Unaoil executives admit paying multimillion-dollar bribes

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Three UK businessmen plead guilty in US to bribing officials in nine countries over 17 years

Three British businessmen have admitted their roles in paying multimillion-dollar bribes to officials in nine countries over 17 years, American prosecutors have said.

Two brothers from the Ahsani family, who ran the energy consultancy Unaoil, have pleaded guilty to facilitating the payment of bribes between 1999 and 2016 to officials in Africa and the Middle East.

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