Christopher Houssemayne du Boulay in financial and legal media on SFO’s disclosure problems

Business Crime partner Christopher Houssemayne du Boulay has been quoted in the financial and legal media following his success representing Ariel Armon in the London Mining bribery prosecution.

After having spent nearly ten years under investigation for alleged corruption in Sierra Leone, Mr Armon was last week acquitted of all charges when the SFO offered no evidence, having concluded that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.

The SFO pointed to failings in its Autonomy e-disclosure system as one of the reasons it could not be ready for trial: a similar issue to that which preceded the SFO dropping its prosecution of individuals at G4S in 2024.

Christopher Houssemayne du Boulay defended individuals in both cases, and this week told outlets including The Times, GIR and Law 360 how the SFO’s deep disclosure problems are not solely technological.

“Three years on from the identification of issues with the SFO’s e-disclosure platform in G4S, the collapse of the London Mining case for similar failings shows that the SFO has still not learned necessary lessons“, Christopher told The Times.

“Both the London Mining and G4S prosecutions collapsed because the SFO placed too much faith in its automated systems, and failed to consider whether there might be issues with the way in which its human staff interacted with those systems. The issue was never simply about the software.

“There needs to be a wholesale review and overhaul of the way in which the SFO handles digital material to identify any further issues before they give rise to the potential for miscarriages of justice.“

He told Law 360 that the SFO must now ask itself serious questions about its handling of the Autonomy system.

“These questions include: who knew about the issue? When did they first find out about it? Why did theydo nothing about it until now? And, most importantly: how many more issues are there which are yet to come to light?“

And in Global Investigations Review Christopher was quoted saying: “If the SFO can’t ensure that their datasets are complete and accurate, then cases will continue to collapse, or worse, miscarriages of justice will occur.”