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ARTICLE · 04 SEPTEMBER 2018

SFO Raids Reach 6 Year High

Mishcon de Reya LLP
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In June 2018 it was formally announced that Lisa Osofsky will be the next Director of the SFO.

United KingdomCriminal Law
Alex Tyerman
Alex Tyerman

In June 2018 it was formally announced that Lisa Osofsky will be the next Director of the SFO.' As her official start date of 3 September 2018 rapidly approaches, we consider how Osofsky's tenure may play out given the SFO's involvement in important judicial decisions and a trend towards an increasingly assertive stance on white collar crime.

Osofsky will join at a key time for the SFO, which awaits two important decisions that will help define the ambit of the SFO's powers. The first is the outcome of a claim for judicial review brought by KBR Inc. which seeks to challenge the use of s.2 powers to compel KBR Inc. to provide data held on their US servers, albeit previously held in part by their subsidiary KBR Ltd which is currently under investigation by the SFO. It is anticipated that the Court's ruling in this matter will provide clarity as to the scope of s.2 powers, particularly how these relate to material held overseas. The second decision will be the Court

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