New prosecutorial tool for SFO & DPP
Deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs)—voluntary agreements to encourage corporations to self-report—came into force this week.
Prosecutors are able to offer a DPA to an organisation alleged to be involved in offences such as fraud, bribery, money laundering and forgery. If the organisation can satisfy certain terms such as ensuring better checks are in place then the prosecutor will initially suspend and eventually terminate criminal prosecution. Thus, by admitting wrongdoing at an early stage, the organisation can avoid criminal prosecution.
Polly Dyer, barrister at QEB Hollis Whiteman, says: “They provide the SFO and DPP with a new prosecutorial tool.
“It remains to be seen how effective they will be—there are competing concerns, on the one hand that they are a means for corporations to ‘buy their way out’ of a prosecution and on the other that the corporations concerned will be unwilling to enter into such agreements due to the evidential threshold which a prosecutor would need to pass to initiate criminal proceedings, the degree of cooperation required and scrutiny to which they would be subjected and the severe financial penalties.
“However, as can be seen from cases in the US and Europe, DPAs have proved to be valuable in other jurisdictions and should, one hopes, be effective here, particularly given that there is a requirement for proper independent and effective judicial scrutiny.”
Alexandra Underwood, partner at Field Fisher Waterhouse, says DPAs will “encourage greater self-reporting and speed up the processing of cases by the prosecutor”.
