Industry corruption will be focus of fraud investigators
Serious Fraud Office (SFO) director Richard Alderman says the SFO will target the private equity, insurance and hedge fund industries for corporate corruption, the FT reports.
Alderman said the SFO had decided to focus on asset-backed securities, insurance fraud, private equity companies and hedge funds as prime areas for further inquiry.
"Hedge funds was the first project . . . and we are monitoring the others," he said. "Clearly when whistleblowers come to us, or members of the public report fraud, we are very interested in anything that might have a City link in it."
Alderman - who cites the prosecutions of a corrupt solicitor and a group of Newcastle-based property fraudsters as among the highlights of the past year - pledged the agency would soon bring more high-profile investigations to a conclusion. He said there would be more corruption cases after last week's launch of a landmark prosecution against construction company Mabey & Johnson, the first against a business for bribing a foreign public official.
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