UK Serious Fraud Office Clarifies Its Approach To Compliance Programmes

In the UK, as is the case in other jurisdictions, prosecutors’ assessments of corporate organisations’ compliance arrangements are crucial to whether investigations will be concluded through deferred prosecution agreements (“DPAs”) or prosecutions. Guidance published by the UK Serious Fraud Office (“SFO”) on 17 January 2020 provides the clearest indications yet about when and how it will evaluate compliance programmes maintained by corporate organisations it is investigating and what it is looking for when making these decisions.

Key messages

The guidance is designed to be read in conjunction with and to assist prosecutors when they are applying other guidance, in particular the Guidance on Corporate Prosecutions and the Code of Practice on Deferred Prosecution Agreements (“the DPA Code”) (both published jointly with the Crown Prosecution Service) and the SFO’s Corporate Co-operation Guidance.