Serco Geografix Ltd Statement of Facts published

28 Apr 2021 12:05 PM

The Serious Fraud Office can now publish the Statement of Facts from its Deferred Prosecution Agreement with Serco Geografix Ltd, after reporting restrictions on its publication were lifted.

The Statement of Facts details how Serco Geografix Ltd devised a scheme to defraud the Ministry of Justice by hiding the true extent of the profits being made between 2010 and 2013 by its parent company, Serco Limited, from its contract for the provision of electronic monitoring services. By dishonestly misleading the Ministry of Justice in this way, Serco Geografix Ltd prevented the Ministry of Justice from attempting to limit any of Serco Limited’s future profits, recover any of Serco Limited’s previous profits, seek more favourable terms during renegotiations of contracts, or otherwise threaten Serco Limited’s contract revenues.

In entering into a DPA with the SFO, Serco Geografix Ltd took responsibility for three offences of fraud and two of false accounting. The details of this offending are contained within the Statement of Facts.

Under the terms of the DPA, Serco Geografix Ltd paid a financial penalty of £19.2 million, and the full amount of the SFO’s investigative costs of £3.7m. This has been paid in full, and is in addition to the £12.8m compensation already paid by Serco to the MoJ as part of a £70m civil settlement in 2013.

The DPA was accompanied by an undertaking in which Serco Group, Serco Geografix Ltd’s parent company, agreed to strengthen its Group-wide Ethics and Compliance functions and carry out annual reporting on its Group-wide assurance programme.

The case remains under the three-year term of the DPA.

Notes to Editors:

  1. The Statement of Facts can be found here.
  2. The Statement of Facts can be published after reporting restrictions postponing its publication were lifted. The reporting restriction order was made by Mr Justice Davis on 19 December 2019.
  3. The SFO entered into a DPA with Serco Geografix Ltd on 4 July 2019. More details can be found here.
  4. The Statement of Facts for this DPA relates only to the potential criminal liability of Serco Geografix Limited and does not address whether liability of any sort attaches to any employee, agent, former employee or former agent of Serco Geografix Limited. Insofar as the Statement of Facts refers to individuals, none of those individuals played any part in the process whereby the DPA was concluded. Therefore, this statement of facts is not to be taken as indicating liability of any kind on the part of any particular individual.