Plea-bargaining: The New Regime
The FSA has been lobbying for some time for statutory powers to use the promise of lesser sentences or, in appropriate cases, immunity from prosecution for co-operating witnesses, in order to obtain successful outcomes in market abuse cases. Certain prosecutors, including the Serious Fraud Office, the Department for Public Prosecutions and tax officials, have already been afforded such powers on a statutory basis in their capacity as “specified prosecutors” under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA). In the US, the SEC has similar powers to encourage “whistleblowers”. Although the FSA has made it clear that it is unlikely to make frequent use of this kind of statutory power, it believes that (as has been the case with the SEC) it will assist greatly in some cases.
Lawyers Shane Gleghorn, Julie Simpson Day
This article was written by Shane Gleghorn and Julie Simpson and appeared in the 19 March 2010 edition of Executive View and is reproduced with the kind permission of the editors.
