Aziz Rahman Gives His Thoughts On This Year's Cambridge International Symposium On Economic Crime Speeches In Interview With LexisNexis

Representatives of the SFO have recently given speeches indicating a renewed focus on stripping the proceeds of crime from those the SFO investigates and prosecutes.

What do you think has prompted this?

It is likely that this is at least driven in part by there being a new Director at the SFO. But there is also movement afoot in this area for other reasons. The Law Commission is now looking into the Suspicious Activity Reports Regime and is soon to be considering the Proceeds of Crime Act. It is only logical, therefore, that the SFO considers its role and priorities when it comes to the proceeds of crime.

Do you see this as a sea change in approach or not and for what reasons?

It is not really a sea change, at least not at present. The SFO is just reminding everyone that it is out there and "doing its job''. At the moment, unexplained wealth orders (UWO's) have only been used by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and it may be that the SFO feels the need to remind the public what it is doing. That said, however, the NCA is being timid when it comes to issuing UWO's at present, although it is at least using both them and the civil recovery proceedings under Part 5 of POCA. Only time will tell if we are to see a sea change regarding the SFO's approach to taking the proceeds of crime from those it investigates and / or prosecutes. For the SFO, any change will only be determined by its future use of Part 5 and UWO's - not by the speeches it gives on this matter.

What do the speeches indicate about the use to which unexplained wealth orders might be put by the SFO?

At the moment, the SFO seems to be allowing the NCA to take all the UWO cases that come their way. And this is despite the fact that the SFO is trying to be the lead agency on international bribery and corruption cases. Some say that the reason that the SFO is unenthusiastic about UWO's is that the financial settlement with the government does not allow it to collect a 'cut' from confiscated/ recovered assets under ARIS - the Assets Recovery Incentivisation Scheme. Since ARIS came into effect in 2006, 50% of any money recovered in confiscation has been kept by the Home Office, with the rest split three ways; between the investigators, the prosecution agency and the court service. But whereas the NCA gets to keep a portion of whatever it successfully recovers, this is not a benefit enjoyed by the SFO. And with law enforcement agencies confiscating a total of £201M in 2016-17, such a...