The UK has multiple bodies responsible for investigating and enforcing breaches of the UK’s anti-corruption and money laundering laws. These include agencies for investigating and/or prosecuting overseas corruption offences, such as the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the National Crime Agency (NCA). And multiple agencies for investigating and/or prosecuting money laundering including the NCA, HM Revenue & Customs, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
We monitor how effective the different enforcement agencies are and developments in the enforcement landscape to see how they impact upon implementation of anti-corruption laws. We assess whether resourcing is adequate, whether enforcement agencies are able to attract and retain suitably qualified staff and whether the enforcement agencies have sufficient independence from political interference and corporate interests.
Our analysis traces the origins of this investigation and the twists and turns of a dramatic jury trial that culminated in the acquittal of a woman who wielded unprecedented power over Nigeria’s notoriously dysfunctional oil industry.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) will not have to pick up the legal bill for former defendants in its collapsed London Mining case, after a judge yesterday rejected claims that the agency should pay up because of alleged misconduct in their handling of the probe.
New data on key corruption and economic crime offences in Spotlight’s enforcement tracker has revealed big increases in prosecutions across the board in 2024-25. But looking beyond the headline numbers, what story does this data really tell us about the state of anti-corruption enforcement in England and Wales?
As the world faces a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, and the UK government warns that “every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse”,...
Today the Serious Fraud Office dropped a decade-old corruption case against former executives at London Mining PLC and their alleged ‘fixer’, exposing new problems with the agency’s legacy disclosure software...
The government has this week announced its intention to deliver the most ambitious reforms to policing in decades with the creation of a National Police Service (NPS). While there are...
The trial of Diezani Alison-Madueke, former Nigerian minister for petroleum resources, kicked off in London today. She stands accused of awarding government contracts worth millions to high-profile businessmen in return...
UK law enforcement agencies are struggling to make a dent in the huge sums of dirty money washing through the UK, and are permanently recovering just £1 in every £4...
