Criminal Justice: How Best To Stop Economic Crime

Speaking at the 35th annual Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime, Robert Buckland QC MP, the Solicitor General for England and Wales, and David Green QC, Director of the SFO, addressed the question, "Preventing and controlling economic crime in the modern world—whose responsibility and are they really up to it?"

Whose responsibility?

The Solicitor General's answer was pragmatic and unequivocal. Economic crime can only, he opined, be properly tackled by a coordinated response from, and based on cooperation between, the criminal justice system (including law enforcement agencies) and the private sector, because "addressing economic crime is no single body or person's sole responsibility."

Throughout his speech, the Solicitor General highlighted those new initiatives and tools that are helping to encourage a joined-up, cooperative approach between the private sector and the criminal justice system, including:

The introduction of Deferred Prosecution Agreements ("DPAs"). Whilst acknowledging that they are a welcome prosecutorial tool, his speech majored on the DPA regime's ability to align the private sector with the criminal justice system by avoiding the need for lengthy and costly trials, helping to prevent repeat offending through the use of corporate monitors and the implementation of anti-corruption compliance measures and encouraging companies to self-report wrongdoing to the Serious Fraud Office ("SFO"); Changes that have been made to the Suspicious Activity Reporting regime by the Criminal Finances Act 2017, allowing regulated companies to provide critical intelligence to law enforcement agencies; The setting up of the Joint Fraud Taskforce by the Home Secretary last year (building on the success of the Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Taskforce formed in 2015), which brings banks, government and law enforcement agencies together in a new partnership working collectively to tackle fraud, including, for example, by identifying and closing bank accounts linked to fraud; and H.M. Treasury's plan to create a new Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering ("AML") Supervision, hosted by the Financial Conduct Authority, to improve the oversight of the AML supervisory regime and ensure the 22-professional body AML supervisors (with responsibility for, amongst others, the legal and accountancy industries) provide effective and consistent standards of supervision. Reform of corporate criminal liability on the...