Dan Hudson comments in Law360 on new SFO self-reporting guidance
28 April 2025
Seladore Legal’s Dan Hudson has been quoted in Law360 on the Serious Fraud Office’s new approach to corporate self-reporting.
The SFO has announced that companies disclosing suspected wrongdoing will be spared prosecution except in “exceptional” cases, backed by strict timetables for agency responses.
The new guidance is intended to encourage earlier engagement, self-reporting, and greater use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements, though questions remain as to whether self-reporting will always be the best course – particularly given wider changes to corporate criminal liability and new incentives proposed for whistleblowers.
Dan commented: “The upcoming extensions of corporate criminal liability adds to the tension. Companies will be more incentivized to throw complicit managers and employees at the SFO’s mercy before non-complicit – but perhaps disaffected – individuals with knowledge blow the whistle.”
This is particularly so if the SFO gets its way and is permitted to offer rewards to whistleblowers, which could see corporates and their staff in a race to the SFO’s door.
In addition, the new Guidance places emphasis on genuine self-reporting or exemplary co-operation and its warning that investigatory ‘forum-shopping’ will be viewed as uncooperative.
When viewed together with the US Administration’s significant ‘dialling down’ of enforcement activity (particularly in the foreign bribery space) and the recent announcement of charges by the SFO against insurer UIBL for failing to prevent overseas bribery – which could see a rare trial focussing on the question of what are “adequate procedures” – these developments all suggest that the SFO is doing its utmost to increase its enforcement activity (including in relation to overseas conduct).