Serious Fraud Office: Standards
The question
To ask the Solicitor General, whether her Department has issued any guidance to the Serious Fraud Office following the Supreme Court’s judgment in R (Respondent) v Hayes (Appellant) UKSC/2024/0087.
Answered by Ellie Reeves
The judgement made in Tom Hayes’ and Carlo Palombo’s appeal to the Supreme Court regarding their convictions for manipulating Libor and Euribor was not based on flaws in the SFO’s procedures and the need for internal guidance, but that the directions given by the judge at their trials were incorrect in law. The court ruled that trial judges had misdirected juries by treating the question of whether a bank submission is "dishonest" as a matter of law, rather than leaving it to the jury.
The defences contention was that was that this removed from the jury an essential consideration of fact which ought to have been for them to determine. In quashing the convictions, the Supreme Court has indicated agreement with that view.
The SFO was not criticised in the judgment and carefully considers judgments of this nature, as part of its ongoing commitment to delivering effective and fair prosecutions
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