Legislation to enable US-style deferred prosecutions for corporate crime may feature in the Queen’s speech on 9 May.

Richard Alderman (pictured), outgoing director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), said last week that deferred prosecution - under which the authorities and a business agree a penalty to be imposed on the business if it does not comply with ‘good behaviour’ measures over a set number of years - is ‘a very powerful weapon’ against corruption and fraud.

‘I want to see this in the UK,’ Alderman told a seminar at Saïd Business School, Oxford. He said the solicitor general, Edward Garnier QC MP, ‘is looking for legislation for the next parliamentary session that will enable a UK counterpart of the US system to be enacted’.

However, Alderman warned that it will not be possible simply to transplant the US system. Unlike in the US, where the justice department and the corporation agree on the size of a deferred fine, English courts ‘have made it absolutely clear that the SFO has no role to play in discussing questions of penalties or sentence’.

For deferred prosecutions to work in the UK, he said the judge would have to be involved in each case from an early stage to advise on whether the agreement is in the interests of justice. ‘I do not underestimate the significance of the culture shift involved here,’ he said. The SFO would also have to negotiate the size of penalties directly with the offender. ‘Corporations are not going to enter the process unless we can discuss figures and other outcomes in a realistic manner,’ he added.

Another obstacle is transparency. ‘Ultimately the resolution of the case will have to be in open court,’ he said.

Barry Vitou, partner at City firm Pinsent Masons, said that the government had no choice other than to bring its system of penalties into line with that of the US. ‘It cannot be right that people prefer to rush off to the US to cut a deal to end-run the UK system.’

Vitou said that a clear set of rules based on legislation would allay fears of the judiciary’s role being undercut.

Alderman is due to leave the SFO next month, to be replaced by David Green QC.