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Senior City lawyers are railing against plans to subsume the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into the National Crime Agency (NCA), amid fears of yet more disruption to the prosecution of white-collar crime.
A review ordered by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is reportedly looking at allowing the SFO, which has been investigating and prosecuting serious frauds for 28 years, to be governed by the two-year-old NCA. The NCA is already fighting a wide range of serious crimes, from child abuse and cyber crime to organised criminal networks.
Reports of the move came just weeks after David Green, the SFO’s director, had his term extended by two years.
Jonathan Pickworth, a partner at the international law firm White & Case’s white-collar crime team, said: “We’ve just gone through 12 months of uncertainty over who will be the next director of the SFO and now this.
“How are they ever going to recruit and retain the best staff when there’s this constant state of uncertainty?”
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Mr Pickworth was also concerned about the prospect of a new agency that did not possess the SFO’s experience in effect telling it what to do in investigations.
He joined Kingsley Napley lawyer Stephen Parkinson in warning of the threat of political interference in the SFO, which has historically been independent from the Home Office and the Attorney General, unlike the NCA.
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