New body to tackle serious economic crime

16 June 2010

The formation of a new body to tackle serious economic crime was announced by the Chancellor George Osborne in his Mansion House speech today.

The Chancellor said that "we will fulfil the commitment in the coalition agreement to create a single agency to take on the work of tackling serious economic crime that is currently dispersed across a number of Government departments and agencies. We take white collar crime as seriously as other crime and we are determined to simplify the confusing and overlapping responsibilities in this area in order to improve detection and enforcement".

Further details of the shake-up are yet to be revealed but it is thought that the new body will acquire the investigation and prosecution mandate of the current Serious Fraud Office and pick up the criminal enforcement work of the FSA which is to be scrapped by 2012 in a major shake-up of banking regulation also announced by the Chancellor.

Read the full text of the speech here.