The announcement was made at a GIR Live conference in London with a keynote speech by SFO director Nick Ephgrave, who explained an online portal will be set up for companies to report possible breaches of company law, fraud and money laundering.

Going forward, the SFO will only prosecute when exceptional circumstances apply.

The SFO boss also shed more light on what it considers by the term ‘genuine co-operation’, which includes companies preserving their digital and hard copy material, and sharing facts about the criminal conduct it believes has taken place.

Uncooperative behaviour was defined as sharing data with another jurisdiction ‘for strategic reasons’, for example, and attempts to ‘obfuscate the involvement of individuals, minimise and/or withhold the full extent of the suspected offending’, and tactically delaying providing information.

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