SFO’s disclosure failings to be probed by former High Court judge

The Serious Fraud Office’s disclosure failings at the trial of a former oil executive, whose conviction for bribery was overturned by the Court of Appeal, will be probed by a former High Court judge.

Sir David Calvert-Smith, who was director of public prosecutions between 1998 and 2003, will lead an independent review of the SFO’s prosecution of former Unaoil executive Ziad Akle, the attorney general, Suella Braverman QC, announced today.

The review will look at what went wrong in the Unaoil case and what changes are needed at the SFO to ensure that the failings identified by the Court of Appeal cannot happen again, ‘especially in relation to contact with third-parties and disclosure’, she said in a statement.

It will also consider what implications the failings highlighted by this case have for the policies, practices, procedures and related culture of the SFO and whether changes are necessary to address ‘any wider issues of SFO policies, practices, procedures or related culture’.

‘We must ensure lessons are learned so that the failings we saw in the Unaoil case can never happen again,’ Braverman said.

Calvert-Smith, who conducted an inquiry into the SFO’s investigation of Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, will aim to report to Braverman by the end of May.

In December, the Court of Appeal criticised the SFO for ‘wholly inappropriate’ contacts with a ‘fixer’ as well as ‘serious’ disclosure failures at Akle’s trial.

SFO director Lisa Osofsky and other senior figures at the watchdog had contacts with David Tinsley, a former US Drug Enforcement Administration agent who was acting on behalf of the Ahsanis, the family which owned and controlled Unaoil – which Lord Justice Holroyde said was ‘wholly inappropriate’.

The prosecution’s refusal to provide material relating to Tinsley’s dealings with the SFO was ‘a serious failure by the SFO to comply with their duty’, the judge added.

After the ruling, Akle’s lawyers said the case ‘raises serious questions over Lisa Osofsky’s tenure as director of the SFO’.