The City’s police force has taken its first steps to hiring law firms to recover assets from convicted criminals through civil litigation.

City of London Police told the Gazette that it is seeking expressions of interest from panel management companies to work on the project. It stressed that it is not yet inviting bids from individual law firms. 

The two-year pilot scheme announced earlier this month aims to test whether outsourcing the collection of proceeds of fraud and cybercrime can improve the collection rate. It will be deployed in tandem with asset recovery under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA).

A spokesperson for the force said today: 'We will need a team of people to work with us on this and pursue some initial cases to prove this concept.

'City of London Police are primarily investigating whether using a panel management strategy as a central method of coordination is possible for this project and whether this is likely to be the best option available.

'We are therefore looking for panel management companies who are capable of working on this two-year pilot project.

Further information is available at www.capitalesourcing.com. The closing date is 9 September.