SFO ditches probes into Glaxo and Rolls-Royce

THE Serious Fraud Office has suffered another humiliating setback after it scrapped high-profile investigations into Rolls-Royce and Glaxosmithkline.

Lisa Osofsky, director of the SFO, declared there was either ‘insufficient evidence’ or it was ‘not in the public interest’ to continue with the cases.

The SFO’s case against Tesco over its £250m accounting scandal collapsed in December, adding to a string of failures for the organisation.

The Rolls-Royce investigation dates back to 2013 over claims the engineer and one of its units used bribery to win business in Indonesia, India, Russia, China and Nigeria from 1989 to 2013.

The firm was ordered to pay a £497m in 2017 as part of the SFO’s investigation. The 2017 deal, known as a deferred prosecution agreement, cleared the company but the SFO was able to continue investigating and potentially prosecute individuals linked to the case.

The probe into Glaxo, in 2014, came after Chinese authorities accused the drug maker of bribing officials and hospitals to buy its medicines.

The decision to drop the longrunning investigations was seen as a sign that Osofsky, 57, who joined in September, is looking to free the organisation from a backlog of slow-running cases she does not believe it could win.

But lawyers and campaigners were taken aback by the move.

Robert Barrington, executive director of anti-corruption organisation Transparency International, said: ‘It is absurd that yet again a company can admit to bribery and yet neither the bribe payers nor the management team that allowed the crime to happen are held responsible.’

Sarah Wallace, a partner at Irwin Mitchell solicitors, said: ‘It is extraordinary the SFO are unable to charge any individual suspects in relation to RollsRoyce given the scale of the allegations in the deferred prosecution agreement.’

Rolls-Royce declined to comment, while GSK said it was ‘pleased’ with the decision.