Fraud office set to drop key case
ANTI-FRAUD investigators could be forced to drop a long-running probe into property tycoon Vincent Tchenguiz after admitting they have made a series of mistakes.
The Serious Fraud Office said it is “urgently” reviewing Tchenguiz’s status as a suspect after he was arrested in an inquiry into the collapse of Iceland’s Kaupthing Bank.
Yesterday Tchenguiz’s barrister accused the SFO of “institutional failure” as Vincent and his brother, Robert, began a judicial review into their arrests in a dawn raid last year.
The agency made “false” and “misconceived” allegations against Vincent Tchenguiz, the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court was told.
The brothers, two of Britain’s best-known entrepreneurs, have not been charged and have protested their innocence after the raids, which involved 135 police officers in London and Iceland. Their judicial review accuses the SFO of unlawful entry, searches and seizures, misleading a judge and an abuse of process.
“The nature and extent of the SFO’s admitted errors in the present case are of a different order. In the interested party’s submission they point to collective institutional failure,” said Lord Goldsmith, for Vincent Tchenguiz, in court filings.
Lord Macdonald, QC, said the SFO had made “inaccurate and untrue” allegations against Robert Tchenguiz, who has previously branded the agency’s actions as “unlawful”. The SFO has cautioned that Robert’s relationship with Kaupthing executives still needed careful assessment.
The hearing comes after reports the agency considered putting undercover agents into Mayfair nightclub Annabel’s as part of its investigation.
It will only increase scrutiny on the SFO, which has been haemorrhaging staff and is facing its first independent assessment by the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate.
The SFO, which also promised to return material seized last year, will make a decision on Vincent by 18 June after David Green, its new director, said that “in light of the material filed in response to the SFO’s evidence, the status of Mr Vincent Tchenguiz as a suspect in the SFO’s investigation must be, and will be, reviewed – and as a matter of urgency”.
Lord Goldsmith said the papers are “as close as I have ever seen to a prosecuting authority saying they might well have to stop this investigation”.
Last month a top judge criticised the “sheer incompetence” of the SFO. Lord Justice Thomas ran out of patience after the SFO admitted “there isn’t a record of precisely what information or documentation was relied upon” to obtain search warrants.
The SFO is expected to begin the defence of its actions today.