Francesca Cassidy-Taylor assesses the last Serious Fraud Office annual report of Lisa Osofsky’s directorship

With the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) having published its final annual report with Lisa Osofsky as Director, Francesca Cassidy-Taylor wrote abouts its findings.

In her piece, which was published by Fraud Intelligence, she likens the report to a snapshot of the SFO as the current Director prepares to depart.

Francesca details the SFO successes contained in the report. But she also emphasises the problems that exist, which form an “itemised list of challenges’’ that new Director, Nick Ephgrave, will have to tackle. These include the strong criticism of the SFO in two reviews that were completed last year as a result of the agency’s failings in the Unaoil and Serco cases.

She also draws attention to the report’s admission that the failure of legal technology in delivering the services required by the SFO is the highest risk to the agency’s effective functioning, and to the SFO’s disclosure regime currently undergoing inspection by HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate.

But she also highlights the report’s welcoming of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, which will increase the SFO’s powers under section 2A Criminal Justice Act 1987, widen the notion of corporate criminal liability and introduce the offence of failure to prevent fraud and money laundering.

The full article can be read here (subscription required).