Deferred Prosecution Agreements are another step closer in the UK.

The Sunday Telegraph reports that the government will publish a formal consultation about Deferred Prosecution Agreements in June quoting an official at the Ministry of Justice last week saying:

“We are developing proposals for deferred prosecution agreements to tackle corporate crime more effectively. The Government intends to publicly consult on these proposals this summer.”

Last month Edward Garnier said in the House of Commons:

“…later in the current Parliament, I [will] introduce deferred prosecution agreements to the criminal justice armoury. Such agreements will deal with penalty payments, but also, where appropriate, with the payment of compensation, and the payments will be made as a result of court orders.”

We support the introduction of Deferred Prosecution Agreements into the UK. Last year we hosted the first informal consultation conducted by Edward Garnier QC and Richard Alderman, the then Director of the SFO, in relation to them for practitioners and corporations.

We have written extensively about the Deferred Prosecution Agreements and the need for them in the UK.

Opinion

The lack of of a DPA regime in the UK places UK PLC at a significant disadvantage with no ability to stave off the possibility of debarment by way of a ‘Deferred Prosecution’ if a corporation changes its ways.

This results in forum shopping or enforcement arbitrage with some corporations seeking to end run UK enforcement by entering into Deferred Prosecution Agreements in the US.

This makes no sense.