FAQs

The Serious Fraud Office investigates serious or complex fraud. Our priorities lie with cases where:

• There are multiple victims (usually investors) of the suspected fraud
• Those allegedly involved are in important positions of trust
• The alleged criminal transactions have significant legal or financial complexity beyond the resources of most other law enforcement agencies
• There are allegations of bribery and corruption.
• In the case of bribery or corruption matters, we focus on crimes involving public officials, which could undermine public confidence in the administration of laws.
  We do not become involved in matters of tax evasion, identity fraud or civil disputes.

Please click here information on how to report a concern to the Serious Fraud Office, or whether another agency may be better placed to assist.

The recovery of losses is generally a civil matter. We only conduct criminal investigations and prosecutions, although there are avenues under the Sentencing Act 2002 for reparation. You would be encouraged to seek advice from an appropriately qualified and experienced legal practitioner to consider your options for civil recovery.

Because the matters we investigate are very complex, often with many thousands of documents to examine, an investigation usually takes at least six months.

On sentencing, a judge will take into consideration factors such as the age of the defendant, their background and criminal history, guilty plea, whether they have paid any reparation and whether they have shown any remorse.

Aggravating factors such as the impact on victims, the duration of the offending, level of trust that has been abused and continuation of offending during the investigation on prosecution can also be taken into account.

If you are directly involved in a case, then the SFO will inform you of the verdict. Otherwise, the SFO will usually post a media release publicising a verdict and this would also be posted on this website.

There are many things that influence the length of a trial so it’s impossible to say. The majority of SFO cases are large and complex and involve many witnesses, meaning the trial may go on for weeks.

The prosecutor and the defence lawyer will tell the Court how long they think the trial will take, and how many witnesses will have to give evidence. If the case is long and complicated, it may not be possible to list it for trial at that hearing, because more work has to be done. If this is the case it will be listed for trial at a later court hearing, once everyone is ready to proceed.

The Court will then endeavour to fix a date for trial that is convenient for all witnesses, although this may not be always possible especially if it will result in a long delay to the trial date.