The High Court has accused the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) of “sheer incompetence” in connection with its Tchenguiz brothers investigation.
The rebuke from Lord Justice Thomas came after the fraud watchdog admitted it had “no clear record” of the information it used to obtain search warrants against one of the property tycoon brothers, Vincent. The SFO asked for an extra six weeks to produce a comprehensive statement about how it built up a case against Vincent and his brother, Robert, to justify the warrants. The judge gave the SFO until the end of April and said the delay was “profoundly unsatisfactory”. One of the reasons the SFO gave for its difficulties was that it said many of the original investigation team had left which made the task of establishing how errors had been made in obtaining the warrants harder.
05/04/12 Financial Times 1
Times 53
Daily Telegraph B3
