High Court Finds SFO Can Compel Production Of Documents Held By Foreign Company Outside The Jurisdiction

In a recent decision in the context of a judicial review, the High Court held that the SFO was able to compel a foreign company to produce documents located outside the jurisdiction, pursuant to s.2(3) of the Criminal Justice Act 1987 (CJA), where there was "a sufficient connection between the company and the jurisdiction": R (On The Application Of KBR Inc) v The Director of the Serious Fraud Office [2018] EWHC 2368 (Admin).

This is the first time that an English court has reasoned that compulsory disclosure powers exercisable by a UK criminal enforcement agency have extraterritorial application. The judgment is notable for its finding of the extraterritorial operation of a statute where no explicit wording in favour of extraterritoriality applied. In the civil context, the courts have also seemed increasingly willing, in recent years, to find that provisions enabling the enforcement of judgments and orders have extraterritorial effect, such as the court's powers of committal (see here).

From a civil litigation perspective, the increased reach of the SFO to obtain documents outside of this jurisdiction, in light of the KBR decision, may increase the scope of documents that are ultimately disclosable in civil proceedings. This may be because the SFO is itself a party to the proceedings - the CJA does not act as a bar against the SFO giving disclosure of documents obtained under its compulsory powers (see Tchenguiz v Rawlinson and Hunter Trustees SA [2013] EWHC 2128 (QB), considered here) - although the circumstances in which this is likely to be the case will be rare. Or, if it was known that the SFO had obtained the documents, a litigant could make an application against the SFO for third party disclosure...