A decade of litigation over allegations of international corruption - and of malpractice by City lawyers acting in the investigation - has quietly closed with a confidential out-of-court settlement.
In a statement today, the Serious Fraud Office said that: 'Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Limited, the director of the Serious Fraud Office, Dechert LLP and David Neil Gerrard have concluded the proceedings between them on terms which are confidential.'
It continued: 'Between 2013 and 2023, the SFO investigated Kazakh mining company ENRC over suspected bribery and corruption linked to mining assets in the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere. The investigation concluded without charges due to insufficient admissible evidence.
'ENRC brought a civil claim against its former lawyers in 2017 and the SFO in 2019. The court found the SFO was in breach of its duties, including engaging with and taking unauthorised information between 2011 and 2013. The court also found that, but for this conduct, the investigation would not have opened.’
Matthew Wagstaff, SFO director of legal services, said: 'We are confident that the SFO’s wrongdoing between 2011 and 2013 could never happen again. The SFO is a fundamentally different organisation. We have overhauled how we operate with stronger governance, independent oversight and clearer safeguards.'
Helen Taylor, deputy director of pressure group Spotlight on Corruption, commented: 'The SFO will no doubt be glad to see the back of this bruising legal battle, but the specialist prosecutor is no ordinary litigant and the public deserves to know how much taxpayer money is being handed over to a controversial Kazakh miner bankrolled by sanctioned Russian banks. Deals struck behind closed doors, potentially involving millions of pounds of public money, make it all but impossible to scrutinise whether the SFO is properly delivering for the public.’
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