CORPORATIONS need to be wise to the fact that a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) can come from all prosecuting bodies, not just the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), warns lawyer.

News broke that the company behind Coral and Ladbrokes will pay £585m after a probe into alleged bribery at a former Turkish subsidiary. The DPA action against Entain was taken by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), who were working with the HMRC.

Iskander Fernandez, partner and head of whitecollar crime at Kennedys Law, said: "This is the first non-SFO DPA that has been entered with a corporate and it's the first that has been entered into by the CPS."

He explained that the CPS' usual approach was to have the police investigate, charge and prosecute, and leave the matter up to the court.

However, Fernandez believes CPS's recent move "demonstrates a maturity or the beginning of maturity for the CPS and how it deals with corporate crime".

The £585m settlement is the UK's second largest DPA with a corporate, following the record £833m fine against Airbus in 2020.

Fernandez highlighted the Entain probe as a reminder that "financial crime is not just the realm of the SFO and that there are other investigative bodies out there who are able to commence financial crime investigations".

Unlike other bodies, HMRC does not have the power to prosecute.

These owers were removed in 2010 after the CPS merged with the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office.

"With the right guidance, with the right advice from counsel, they [CPS] are willing to enter into these agreements and hopefully, if another crosses its path, they will be more willing to consider it rather than simply looking at charging and prosecuting," he suggested.

(c) 2023 City A.M., source Newspaper