The SFO should be there to pursue major cases of fraud and economic crime, not make money

Lisa Osofsky, the director of the UK’s Serious Fraud Office, is having a tough time. The UK has never been as serious as the US about tackling white-collar crime and the SFO has struggled to make any sort of impact, writes Chris Blackhurst

In her virtual Cambridge address, the former FBI lawyer again refused to be cowed (Reuters)

At this time of year I would normally have just attended the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime.

It’s been a habit, a treat of mine, ever since I first started going as a journalist interested in exposing business wrongdoing back in the late 1980s. Then, the conference amounted to a gathering of 50 or so like-minded souls – investigators, legal enforcers, police, lawyers, academics – brought together by Barry Rider, a senior law don, at his college, Jesus. It’s grown hugely over the decades. This, the 38th such week, would have seen around 1,500 delegates from around the world assemble to hear talks on developments and trends in fraud investigation and enforcement, share experiences, and to network.

Alas, in 2020, the pandemic intervened, so like much else the “Cambridge fraud conference” as it is known, was cancelled and the programme rolled forward to next year. However, some of the key speakers have made their presentations available online, including Lisa Osofsky, director of the UK’s Serious Fraud Office.