UK Attorney General Jeremy Wright said he extended the contract of the director of the Serious Fraud Office, David Green, for two more years.
Green was appointed director in April 2012 for a fixed term due to end in April 2016. His contract will now end on April 20, 2018.
AG Wright said in a statement Tuesday:
In his time as director of the SFO David Green led a change in the organization’s approach to prosecuting cases and delivered the first UK deferred prosecution agreement and the first convictions under the Bribery Act 2010. I look forward to working with him in the next phase of his leadership of the Serious Fraud Office.
The SFO handles only “top end fraud and bribery investigations,” Green said in late 2014 — those demanding special skills and lots of resources.
Green has cited a five-year investigation into French industrial giant Alstom as a typical SFO case. The probe resulted in indictments for international bribery and corruption against eight defendants — two companies and six individuals.
Last year, the SFO won a LIBOR-rigging conviction against Tom Hayes, a former derivatives trader at UBS and Citigroup. A jury convicted him of eight counts of conspiracy to defraud. He’s serving a nine-year prison sentence.
But last month a jury in London acquitted six defendants of manipulating LIBOR — — the benchmark interest rate banks pay to borrow money from each other in the London market.
In September, Green said charges brought by the SFO were pending against thirty-two defendants, individual and corporate, who were awaiting trial in eight cases.
Green has stressed the SFO’s special relationship with the DOJ in Washington. He said in 2014 the SFO and DOJ were preparing to swap some people through secondments.
On Tuesday Green said: “I am happy to continue as director, and the SFO will continue to take on the sort of cases for which it was designed.”
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Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. He can be contacted here.
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