KEY POINTS:
The Serious Fraud Office says any watering down of its powers when it merges into a new, broad Organised Crime Agency will jeopardise future investigations into white-collar crime.
The Government has announced the SFO will be disbanded as a stand-alone body and its role taken up by the
new agency, under the umbrella of the police.
Some have expressed concern that white-collar crime will fall through the cracks as a result, and yesterday the SFO's assistant director (prosecutions), Gus Andree Wiltens, reinforced this, saying if any serious focus on white-collar crime was to survive, the new agency had to keep the muscle to do it.
The extra powers the SFO holds mean it can force someone to provide information and override their right to silence if information could be self-incriminatory.
It can also demand documents from people and companies.
"If there is going to be any real attempt to continue looking at white-collar crime, then we need the powers we have at the moment and nothing less. But we don't yet know what the Government intends," Mr Andree Wiltens said.
"We don't know what it [the Organised Crime Agency] is going to be, how it's going to work and, most significantly, we don't know what its powers, if any, are going to be."
The new agency's powers are likely to be based on recommendations in a Law Commission report - and its recommendations would water down the two most rigorous powers the SFO has, including ending its ability to force people to give answers.
Law Commission president Sir Geoffrey Palmer - who first gave the SFO its extra powers as Attorney-General in 1990 - said he would now be happy to see an end to the power to compel people to answer questions, regardless of self-incrimination.
While it was now restricted to the SFO alone, he feared its use could "migrate" if it was transferred to the new agency.
"I don't myself believe it is necessary and I would hate to see it generally available."
Mr Andree Wiltens said such a step would deprive white-collar crime investigators of "a very, very powerful tool to have to unravel complex financial transactions".
He said it was used not only for fraud suspects but also for accountants and lawyers - who hold information usually kept secret under client confidentiality.
The Law Commission report also recommended that the power to demand documents should be retained - but said a court order should be needed to exercise it.
Mr Andree Wiltens said the SFO now issued about 1000 such notices a year and requiring a court order would delay investigations and clog up court time.
Long Arm
What the SFO can do now:
Require a person to answer questions or supply information, regardless of the right to silence and possible self-incrimination.
Issue notices that require people, banks and law firms to hand over documents and information, such as financial and bank records - a power that overrides normal duties of client confidentiality.
Law Commission recommendations:
Restore the protection of self-incrimination.
Continue to allow the use of the power to require that documents be handed over, but only with a court warrant.
