SFO keeps the City honest
David Green QC has been Britain’s most courageous financial enforcer as director of the Serious Fraud Office.
at a moment when the Financial Conduct authority avoided criticism of miscreants for fear of legal redress, the SFO dared to tread where others wouldn’t. it extracted a deferred prosecution agreement and £671m fine from Rolls-Royce over bribery charges and has not given up on pursuing a ‘controlling mind’.
The SFO relentlessly pursued the Libor interest rate cheats, bringing several to justice. a new round of prosecutions involving Euribor (the European equivalent) is under way. Green also took on Barclays over Qatar fundraising after the financial crisis of a decade ago. Those facing trial are former chiefexecutive John varley and two others.
The public demanded that bankers who brought calamity on Britain face justice and where provable crimes could be shown, the SFO is delivering.
it is perverse, then, that with less than a week to go until Green steps back a permanent replacement has yet to be named.
Green was given six months of notice before taking up the role in april 2012. it is understood that a successor has been identified but approval held up by downing Street. doubtless the SFO’s chief operating officer Mark Thompson will do a fine interim job. But the shilly-shallying reflects the Prime Minister’s long-held view that the SFO is superfluous and should be folded into the National Crime agency.
Senior executives at Tesco, Rolls-Royce, Barclays and other corporate giants, including Glaxosmithkline, have learned the hard way that the SFO is a prosecutor to be reckoned with.
Much still needs to be done when it comes to strengthening fraud prosecutions, including bringing an end to long delays at Southwark Crown Court. For the more complex cases, the departing SFO chief favours a judge sitting with financial examiners as an alternative to jury. Such an approach could mean clarity with the judge producing a detailed summary of how the legal decision was reached. The SFO’s independence must be defended and it urgently needs a new leader in the non-nonsense Green mould.
Rough ride
IF ANY comfort is to be drawn from British Gas’s 5.5pc or £60-per-household average price rise it is that the increases do not start until May 29 after a ferociously cold winter.
a strengthening global economy, together with geo-political uncertainty, has sent oil prices up to $70-a-barrel, and wholesale gas prices have followed. Of the £60 rise by British Gas owner Centrica, about half is down to market forces and the rest to hidden taxation in the shape of green levies and the roll-out of smart meters.
Not so long ago British Gas was the only choice for consumers. But it surrendered as many as 750,000 customers to competitors over the last year.
There should still be cheaper gas offers around even though 11 suppliers, including Eon, have already increased tariffs.
With the Government’s prices cap making its way through the Commons, under-pressure Centrica boss iain Conn wants to wean customers of the standard variable tariff (SVT) and offer a more flexible structure giving consumers the chance to lock-in current prices.
it is starting to work, with some 3.7m of British Gas customers off the SvT, leaving some 4.1m customers paying the increase.
ideally Conn wants green and other energy policy costs switched from gas bills to general taxation. No Chancellor is ever going to do that. The Exchequer should be prepared to pay for new gas storage now that Centrica’s Rough facility has given up the ghost.
as we learnt when the Beast from the East closed in, gas storage is a bit of infrastructure that the UK urgently needs for economic security.
Russian roulette
IF ANYONE doubts the power of financial sanctions, they should look no further than the plunge in the rouble since President Trump stepped up pressure on Russia’s oligarchs. Trading group Glencore is among the speediest to react to the sanctions on EN+ tycoon Oleg deripaska by suspending a share-swap deal.
Glencore chief executive ivan Glasenberg also has wisely resigned as a director of Rusal. Contrast his reaction to former Tory minister Lord Barker of Battle, who is clinging on as chairman of EN+. Barker is failing to show solidarity with the americans, Salisbury or victims of the chemical attack in Syria.