Serious Fraud Office to call for overhaul of disclosure regime following trial issues

THE UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is pushing for the UK’s current disclosure framework to be reformed and brought into the 21st century, City A.M. has learned.

The head of the fraud agency, Lisa Osofsky, is expected to use a speech in Cambridge tomorrow to call for an overhaul of the current disclosure regime, which was designed before the advent of mass digital data.

High-profile corporate fraud and bribery probes now generate millions of documents per case. But these have to be manually reviewed, which the SFO argues allows for human error in the disclosure process.

The trial of two former Serco executives, charged with fraud and false accounting, collapsed in April last year after the agency failed to disclose evidence to the defendants.

It was reported earlier this year that the SFO has now outsourced the reviewing of evidence to a private firm in its case against G4S, following disclosure issues in previous cases.

Susan Hawley, executive director of Spotlight on Corruption, said that disclosure was definitely “causing the SFO a headache.”

“It does need looking at, but the problems with disclosure are far deeper,” Hawley said, pointing to other issues such as lack of resources.

As well as demanding a change to the country’s disclosure rules, Osofsky will say that she is “ambitious for the SFO’s future,”

Osofsky, who has approximately one year left of her five year term, will look to improve the SFO’s “influence,” within the possibilities of a “limited budget,” by modernising its use of technology in investigations and strengthening its relationships with international counterparts.

The post Serious Fraud Office to call for overhaul of disclosure regime following trial issues appeared first on CityAM.

For all the latest Lifestyle News Click Here 

 For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! TheDailyCheck is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected] The content will be deleted within 24 hours.