SFO looks to future challenges

Lisa Osofsky has spoken on future challenges in economic crime.  She focused on:

• the success of the National Economic Crime Centre in its first 2 years of existence;
• the refreshed Economic Crime Plan;
• better engagement with partners within the UK and internationally;
• the continued need for a wider “failure to prevent” offence – noting that the Barclays Qatar judgment confirmed the narrow interpretation of “controlling mind” and illustrated how hard it is to hold companies with complex structures to account for fraudulent conduct;
• allowing SFO more latitude to use its section 2 powers before opening a formal investigation in domestic fraud and bribery cases, in the same way it can use it in overseas cases, and for there to be a tipping off offence in relation to section 2 notices;
• the problems of data explosion and keeping systems up to date; and
• the challenges of future trends – likely to be investment fraud.