Serious Fraud Office names former US federal prosecutor as new director

Osofsky’s appointment was welcomed by white collar crime expert Neil McInnes of Pinsent Masons MPillay, the Singapore joint law venture partner of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com.

“The appointment underscores that the SFO is an organisation committed to investigating and prosecuting the most complex and challenging cases of cross-border serious fraud and international corruption,” McInnes said.

“David Green QC left the SFO earlier this year with very notable successes and firsts, such as securing landmark deferred prosecution agreements on internationally-focused cases. Lisa Osofsky’s appointment is a marker that the SFO will continue this direction of travel,” McInnes said.

“It is a signal that serious fraud law enforcement in the UK ‘gets’ that its success will in no small part be measured by continued international cooperation between regulators and agencies worldwide and bringing in skillsets from the private sector and elsewhere with global expertise on cross-border cases," he said.

Osofsky joins the SFO from a global consulting company where she led its investigative, compliance and assurance activities. Previous roles included five years as the deputy general counsel and ethics officer at the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

She is a barrister in England, and in Illinois and Maryland in the US.

McInnes said her background would be helpful to the SFO in the current context of increasing cross-border elements to investigations.

“The SFO will now have a director steeped in expertise across multiple jurisdictions on all forms of corporate investigations as well as forensic intelligence gathering and the issues that arise in the implementation of compliance programmes in the private sector,” McInnes said.

She is only the third female head of the SFO and its first dual-nationality leader. She will take up the role in September for a renewable term of five years.

Attorney general Jeremy Wright QC made the appointment after an open competition, overseen by a civil service commissioner.

The future of the SFO as an independent body was thrown into doubt last year, after the Conservative Party pledged to merge it with the National Crime Agency in its election manifesto. However in December the UK government confirmed the SFO would remain independent, when it unveiled a new national strategy to crack down on economic crime.