On 17 July 2020, Mr Justice William Davis approved the UK’s eighth deferred prosecution agreement (“DPA”) between the UK Serious Fraud Office (“SFO”) and G4S Care and Justice Services (UK) Limited (“G4S C&J”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of G4S plc. The DPA represents the conclusion of the SFO’s investigation, commenced in 2013, into electronic monitoring services provided to MoJ by G4S C&J. This is the second DPA in relation to the provision of such services, following the DPA between the SFO and Serco Geografix Ltd in July 2019 (our briefing in relation to this DPA is available here). As part of the DPA, G4S C&J has agreed to pay a financial penalty of £38.5m and the SFO’s full costs of £5.9m, which is in addition to the £121.3m compensation that G4S C&J paid to the Ministry of Justice (“MoJ”) as part of a civil settlement in 2014.
This is also the second DPA approved in 2020, following the UK’s largest DPA financial settlement which required Airbus S.E. to pay €990,963,712 to the SFO in February this year.
The G4S C&J DPA is the latest addition to the UK’s growing body of DPA case-law and highlights several emerging trends, namely the importance of cooperation with the SFO in any investigation and remedial efforts in determining the discount to be applied to any penalty imposed under a DPA.
In our full briefing (which is available here), we provide an overview of the G4S C&J DPA and the reasons for its approval by the Court. We also discuss some of the emerging trends relating to DPAs in the UK.
For guidance on the nature of DPAs more generally, please see our other recent DPA briefings here and here.
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