> Failings at Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) were in the spotlight on Thursday as a government-ordered review laid bare the agency’s missteps in a high-profile bribery case as a London court simultaneously quashed a third criminal conviction.
> Former High Court judge David Calvert-Smith, appointed to review the agency after its Unaoil bribery case started unravelling last year, said serious problems at the top of the SFO must never be allowed to reoccur.
> Piling fresh pressure on SFO Director Lisa Osofsky, they included a failure to properly record meetings, the use of personal mobile phones, disclosure failures and distrust between senior management and the case team, amplified by the impression that a U.S. fixer had the “seal of approval” from the director.
> “The catalogue of errors laid out in the Calvert Smith review shows that the quashing of yet another conviction in the Unaoil case was entirely avoidable.”
Despite directly criticising SFO director Lisa Osofsky the report fails to deliver a killing blow against her tenure, pretty much as SFO often seem to do against organised corruption.
According to wikipedia the director of the SFO is from the US, with US degrees and worked for the FBI. Could this be part of the problem, she is used to a different legal system and procedures than in the UK?
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> Failings at Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) were in the spotlight on Thursday as a government-ordered review laid bare the agency’s missteps in a high-profile bribery case as a London court simultaneously quashed a third criminal conviction.
> Former High Court judge David Calvert-Smith, appointed to review the agency after its Unaoil bribery case started unravelling last year, said serious problems at the top of the SFO must never be allowed to reoccur.
> Piling fresh pressure on SFO Director Lisa Osofsky, they included a failure to properly record meetings, the use of personal mobile phones, disclosure failures and distrust between senior management and the case team, amplified by the impression that a U.S. fixer had the “seal of approval” from the director.
[Spotlight on Corruption](https://www.spotlightcorruption.org/)’s Susan Hawley [commented](https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/europe/429661/sfo-whiteley-court-bribes/):
> “The catalogue of errors laid out in the Calvert Smith review shows that the quashing of yet another conviction in the Unaoil case was entirely avoidable.”
Despite directly criticising SFO director Lisa Osofsky the report fails to deliver a killing blow against her tenure, pretty much as SFO often seem to do against organised corruption.
On an historical note, Osofsky was appointed fresh from a spell monitoring HSBC’s good behaviour for the US DoJ after charges of sanctions busting and [money laundering for drug cartels](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/11/hsbc-bank-us-money-laundering), during which – seemingly evading her scrutiny – HSBC [continued to participate](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/28/hsbc-faces-questions-over-disclosure-of-alleged-money-laundering-to-monitors) in a $3bn South African money laundering network.
According to [an HSBC whistleblower](https://twitter.com/nw_nicholas/status/1420692450260172803) Osofsky arranged [“a mortgage with HSBC to buy a £3m flat in Kensington”](https://twitter.com/nw_nicholas/status/1050024657162829824) just before giving HSBC a clean bill of health.
According to wikipedia the director of the SFO is from the US, with US degrees and worked for the FBI. Could this be part of the problem, she is used to a different legal system and procedures than in the UK?