SFO Corporate Co-operation Guidance

On 6 August 2019 the UK Serious Fraud Office (“SFO“) published its Corporate Co-operation Guidance which forms part of the SFO’s internal Operational Handbook. The Guidance is designed to assist SFO staff with assessing the co-operation of organisations when considering charging decisions and the possibility of Deferred Prosecution Agreements (“DPAs“).

Co-operation was already highlighted as a public interest factor tending against prosecution in the DPA Code of Practice but the Co-operation Guidance provides more specificity on the behaviours and information required for an organisation to be deemed to be co-operating. Thematically, these requirements are nothing new: identifying suspected wrongdoing and those responsible for it (regardless of their seniority), promptly reporting to the SFO within a “reasonable time” of those suspicions coming to light and preserving and providing evidence promptly in an evidentially sound format. However the specific examples of