U.K. Launches Review of Serious Fraud Office Over Unaoil Bribery Case

The SFO in 2020 said it would review its conduct in the prosecution of individuals in its Unaoil case after a judge at the time questioned the nature of communication between a private investigator and the agency.

The attorney general’s review will focus on what went wrong in the SFO’s Unaoil case and what changes are needed at the agency to ensure the problems identified in the judgment, including disclosure issues and contact with third parties, won’t happen again, the attorney general said. The review will seek to answer three major questions, including why the SFO disclosure failures occurred and what implications these issues may have for the practices, procedures and related culture at the SFO.

“We welcome the appointment of Sir David Calvert-Smith and will cooperate fully with his review,” an SFO spokesperson said in an email.

The review comes after Paul Bond, a defendant who was found guilty of involvement in a Unaoil-linked bribery scheme, appealed his conviction at a London court in December. Mr. Bond filed his appeal after a ruling earlier that month overturned the conviction of one of his co-defendants, Ziad Akle, a former Iraq territory manager for Unaoil.

“This announcement is welcome, but only if the terms of reference go beyond mere encouragement to accept ‘learnings’ and ‘steps for improvement,’” Joseph Kotrie-Monson, a lawyer at Mary Monson Solicitors who represents Mr. Bond, said in an email. “What happened here was somewhere between calamitously inept and a cynical and purposeful interference with the legitimacy of criminal proceedings. Where on that scale does this impropriety lie? Who at the SFO will answer for it? These are questions to which defendants in this case deserve answers.”

“We welcome the appointment of Sir David [Calvert-Smith] and the commencement of the Inquiry. We look forward to reading his report and his conclusions on the many questions that remain unanswered,” Mr. Akle’s lawyer, Joanna Dimmock of Paul Hastings LLP, said in an email.

Messrs. Akle and Bond have argued the SFO improperly communicated with a private investigator for Ata Ahsani and his two sons, who together owned and controlled Monaco-based Unaoil.

Ms. Braverman announced the review on the day that Mr. Akle’s conviction was overturned, saying in a statement that “it was clear to me that swift action was needed. We must ensure lessons are learned so that the failings we saw in the Unaoil case can never happen again.”

The attorney general said Mr. Calvert-Smith would aim to report his findings by the end of May. Ms. Braverman will then update the U.K. Parliament on the results of the review and the government’s response.

Aziz Rahman, a senior partner with an expertise in white-collar crime at Rahman Ravelli Solicitors Ltd. who is not involved in the case, said the appointment of Mr. Calvert-Smith is an excellent choice. He said while it is too early to tell if the review mandate would lead to structural changes at the SFO, the review looks set to be a very robust and thorough look at the workings of the SFO.

“It is going to be crucial to the SFO’s future because of the steps the AG took. It’s pretty unprecedented,” he said.

Write to Mengqi Sun at [email protected]