By Maria Ward-Brennan
Corporations need to be wise to the fact that a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) can come from all prosecuting bodies, not just the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), warns lawyer.
News broke today that the company behind Coral and Ladbrokes will pay £585m after a probe into alleged bribery at a former Turkish subsidiary. The DPA action against Entain was taken by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), who were working with the HMRC.
Speaking to City A.M., Iskander Fernandez, partner and head of white collar crime at Kennedys Law, explained that “this is the first non-SFO DPA that has been entered with a corporate and it’s the first that has been entered into by the CPS.”
He explained that the CPS’ usual approach was to have the police investigate, charge and prosecute and leave the matter up to the court. However, Fernandez believes today’s move “demonstrates a maturity or the beginning of maturity for the CPS and how it deals with corporate crime”.
The £585m settlement is the UK’s second largest DPA with a corporate, following the record £833m fine against Airbus in 2020.
Fernandez highlighted the Entain probe was a reminder that “financial crime is not just the realm of the SFO and that there are other investigative bodies out there who are able to commence financial crime investigations”.
Unlike other bodies, HMRC does not have the power to prosecute. Those powers were removed in 2010 after the CPS merged with the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office.
Fernandez noted that the news today was “refreshing” and comes as a welcome sign that DPA’s “appear to be more commonplace” compared to a few years ago.
“With the right guidance, with the right advice from counsel, they [CPS] clearly are willing to enter into these agreements and hopefully, if another crosses its path, they will be more willing to consider it rather than simply looking at charging and prosecuting,” he suggested.
He also highlighted that this move by the CPS will “work in the favour of the SFO” as it “may take some pressure” off the fraud agency.
He explained: “You’ve got a case that is now not in its books as [another body] was fully able to deal with this matter that would normally be undertaken by the SFO”.
