Serious Fraud Office (United Kingdom)

Serious Fraud Office (United Kingdom)

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is an independent UK Government department that investigates and prosecutes serious or complex fraud and corruption. Accountable to the Attorney General, it has jurisdiction over England, Wales and Northern Ireland and assists a number of overseas investigations by obtaining information from UK sources Section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1987 grants the SFO special compulsory powers to require any person (or business/bank) to provide any relevant documents (including confidential ones) and answer any relevant questions including ones about confidential matters.

The SFO is also the principal enforcer of the Bribery Act 2010, which has been designed to encourage good corporate governance and enhance the reputation of the City of London and the UK as a safe place to do business.

The SFO’s director is David Green CB QC.

Read more about Serious Fraud Office (United Kingdom):  History, Activities, Organisation, Overseas Assistance, Victim Support, Criticisms

Famous quotes containing the words fraud and/or office:

    There exists in a great part of the Northern people a gloomy diffidence in the moral character of the government. On the broaching of this question, as general expression of despondency, of disbelief that any good will accrue from a remonstrance on an act of fraud and robbery, appeared in those men to whom we naturally turn for aid and counsel. Will the American government steal? Will it lie? Will it kill?—We ask triumphantly.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal—that you can gather votes like box tops—is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.
    Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965)