Ex-Rolls chief spoken to by SFO’s bribery inquiry

FORMER Rolls-Royce boss Sir John Rose has been questioned under caution by the Serious Fraud Office as the investigation into bribery at the engineering business steps up.

Last month the FTSE 100 engineering giant agreed to pay £671m in fines after it secured a “deferred prosecution agreement” (DPA) under which it did not face criminal charges but admitted instances of bribery.

The judgment said part of the reason that Rolls secured a DPA was because its man- agement at the time had been cleared out and Rolls was now a different company. Sir John led the FTSE 100 company from 1996 to 2011, a period when several of the bribery offences took place.

Being questioned under caution would have involved Sir John being read his rights, and is a different process from the SFO’s questioning of witnesses. He is not the only person to have been questioned under caution, and it is understood “dozens” of those involved at all levels have been quizzed.

Sir John has denied any wrongdoing.