UK’s Serious Fraud Office Issues Guidance on Deferred Prosecution Agreements

Although we may be familiar with the concept of deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) in the United States, they are not solely a U.S. construct. The United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), for example, first announced its plans to introduce DPAs as part of case resolutions in October 2012, although its first DPA was not utilized until 2015. Since then, the U.K. SFO has entered into eight DPAs.