Government to gut Serious Fraud Office powers
Obviously not enough people are getting away with crime, so the Government is getting rid of some of the powers of the Serous Fraud Office with its merger into the Organised and Financial Crime Agency, run by the Police.
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Tags: OFCA, SFO
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:48 am
To be fair to the govt the SFO has not had startling success despite some fairly draconian powers.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:05 am
Crikey, your first two posts today can only be described as surly, bad tempered and truculent even by Kiwiblog Right standards. What’s the problem David? We are all here to help.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:07 am
This should fit in nicely with most Act & National Supports as most thefts are by White Collar Criminals and therefore voters.
Looks like Labour is moving to position it’self as a Centre Right Party.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:19 am
Maybe – just maybe Labour is protecting some friends who own failed finance companies. I think this is a big mistake to reduce the powers of the SFO. The reason being that with a recession on the near horizon all sorts of white collar crime may be exposed and an example is already evident witht he collapse of so many finance companies. How much fraud has there been to date? These failures may expose some fraud and criminal behaviour and the state needs all powers to get to investigate what has occurred.
Another stupid decision by a stupid government.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:35 am
Well that is certainly one way of viewing it DPF – a bit odd though. The SFO powers to walk all over privilege, and to deny an accused the right to silence, are fairly serious infringements of our customarily accepted rights – unless you think that “good people” shouldn’t worry about such impositions. Btw where do you stand on a national identity card – very useful idea and only people with something to hide could possibly have a reason to object right?
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:38 am
GPT, doesn’t the SFO choose to employ most of its investigators from the police force rather than casting a wider net?
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:56 am
RossK, The reason the SFO have that power, is because that is what the whistle blowers wanted,
When the SFO was set up, there was a desire for people within organisations to be able to blow the whistle on fraud/ serious offending within companies, however many of these people were bound by confidentiality and gagging clauses in their contracts that limited what they were able to say to outside parties for fear of a civil law suit.
Having a compulsion clause in the act, allowed them to avoid a civil case being brought against them, as they can legitimately say that they were complying with the SFO who had the power of compulsion,
I have never seen the SFO use it against a “hostile witness”
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:44 am
Anonymouse, whatever the reason it is not appropriate for legal professional privilege to be denied to citizens nor would it be appropriate for confidentiality clauses to be rendered ineffective so arbitrarily.
I do not see how a compulsion clause in the legislation allowed whistleblowers to avoid a civil action for breach of contract. If a citizen was called as a witness in a case and asked questions about something which was the subject of a confidentiality clause they would raise that concern at the time and the judge would rule on whether they had to answer in spite of the confidentiality clause and if they did have to answer (which they would) that would not be an actionable breach.
On the other hand someone who is subject to a confidentiality clause who wants to initiate an action by way of blowing the whistle would quite rightly be subject to potential action although it is highly doubtful that such an action would be successful where serious fraud offences were proved (public policy would militate against allowing such an action to succeed).
Is it your position though that someone should be able to initiate an SFO investigation by disclosing confidential information with “good intentions” in breach of contract and suffer no harm even though no wrongdoing by the other contracting party is established – if so I regret to say that the SFO powers do not and have never created that scenario.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
One would assume the reason the Serious Fraud Office was taken over was because their success rate was not satisfactory. If that was the case when they had the power to compel answers and to seize documents then don’t expect the Police to improve the outcomes if they have the power to do neither. The right to silence is outdated and the Police have been gradually dis-empowered over the past ten years, thats the reason they need extra staff, give them some powers and they will make the streets safer and convict more crims with half the staff….I wish the new serious crime office well, but I bet they feel very let down that the odds are being further weighed in favour of the criminals.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:45 pm
The SFO’s effectiveness might be debatable, and their use of their powers most certainly is. But to then give these to the NZ police?
That’s like taking a loaded gun off a drunk and giving it to a psychopath. Okay maybe not a psychopath… but a guy with poor self control and a chip on his shoulder
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Has the SFO been looking into the affairs of Healthcare NZ and the HB-DHB ?
King, Lind & Hausmann can now move on secure in the knowledge that as long as King never utters the words ‘I might stand as an independent’ all will be fine and there is no need to remove their snouts from the public trough.
Nothing to see here – move on.