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Resourcing and disclosure—the key challenges currently facing the SFO

Published on: 10 July 2025
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Article summary

Corporate Crime analysis: Display bolder ambition, boost spending, and uncover more wrongdoing. These are the demands made of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and government in a new spotlight on corruption briefing, setting out eight recommendations by which this can be achieved. Is the SFO up to the task? A dynamic new director, new pre-investigatory powers, and a long-desired reform to corporate criminal liability, have given the SFO a new lease of life. Still, two key challenges remain: resourcing and disclosure. Combined, they have caused the collapse of high-profile cases as underpaid and over-stretched teams of disclosure officers, investigators and prosecutors failed to disclose relevant evidence. The stand-out recommendation, an ‘Economic Crime Fighting Fund’, would see the SFO’s sizeable receipts be reinvested in fighting economic crime, and fund the reforms required. It is unlikely, though, that the Chancellor, already struggling to fund key services in her self-imposed handcuffs, will give up the £566m generated by the UK’s economic crime fighting agencies. Written...

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