Attorney General publishes review into SFO Unaoil case

The Attorney General has today published in full the report of an Independent Review of the SFO’s handling of the Unaoil case led by Sir David Calvert-Smith. The Attorney General commissioned the Review following the critical judgement of the Court of Appeal in R v Akle & Ors.

In three separate appeals the Court of Appeal have overturned the convictions of 3 defendants for corruption as a result of disclosure failings by the SFO which centered around contact between employees of the SFO and a third party “fixer” employed by a co-defendant.

The Review concluded that record keeping by the SFO and its employees did not comply with CPIA, there was poor compliance with SFO’s own assurance processes, the case teams were inadequately resourced and there was both a lack of understanding and a lack of trust between the case team and the SFO’s senior management.  The report includes 11 recommendations.

Nikita McNeill was chosen by the Attorney General to be part of the team conducting the Review, together with Sir David and Anthony Rogers of HMCPSI.