Attorney General written question – answered at on 5 July 2017.
Karl Turner
Shadow Minister (Transport)
To ask the Attorney General, what the value, including interest, was of outstanding confiscation orders where the Serious Fraud Office had the lead enforcement role in the financial year 2016-17; and what estimate he has made of how much of that value will be recovered.
Jeremy Wright
The Attorney-General
Recovering the proceeds of crime is a one of the SFO’s strategic objectives. The SFO is committed to using all tools available to it in conducting its proceeds of crime work, and to ensuring that confiscation orders (arising from the cases it prosecutes) are satisfied in full. The SFO has a specialist Proceeds of Crime and International Assistance Division, whose work includes restraint, confiscation and enforcement, civil recovery, and money laundering investigations and prosecutions.
A detailed breakdown of the SFO’s performance in recovering the proceeds of crime over the last five years is published on its website at: https://www.sfo.gov.uk/about-us/.
In 2016-17, £25.4m of financial orders, compensation orders and civil recovery orders were obtained and over £20m was actually recovered in respect of previous orders obtained by the SFO. At present the recovery rate for confiscation orders made in the last four financial years is 81%.
The value of outstanding confiscation (current order amount)[1] orders as of 3rd July 2017, including interest, in which the SFO has the lead enforcement role is £144,952,036. The total interest in respect of these orders is £50,294,045 and the net amount outstanding is £94,657,991. Most of the net outstanding amount (88%) relates to just four out of 22 current orders.
The SFO estimate that their current realistic recoverable amount is between £10 - £12 million.[2] The amount that is currently assessed as unrecoverable comprises in the main hidden assets, unrecovered tainted gifts to associates, assets subject to third party claims or overseas assets.
[1] Orders can be increased (s.22 POCA) and decreased (s.23 POCA) and the figures set out relate to the current order amount and not the original amount
[2] The figure provided above is the SFOs best estimate as of 04/07/2017.
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The Attorney General, assisted by the Solicitor General, is the chief legal adviser to the Government. The Attorney General also has certain public interest functions, for example, in taking action to protect charities.
The Attorney General has overall responsibility for The Treasury Solicitor's Department, superintends the Director of Public Prosecutions as head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland. The Law Officers answer for these Departments in Parliament.
The Attorney General and the Solicitor General also deal with questions of law arising on Government Bills and with issues of legal policy. They are concerned with all major international and domestic litigation involving the Government and questions of European Community and International Law as they may affect Her Majesty's Government.
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