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Litigation and Enforcement: SFO Interview Points to Crackdown on Green Investment Fraud
November 29, 2022In a recent interview, and accompanying social media post, the Chief Investigator of the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), Michael Gallagher, stated that the agency is focused on tackling ‘green fraud’. He cited examples of recent SFO investigations that resulted in prison sentences for individuals seeking to exploit the current consumer appetite for green investments. Gallagher explained his view that fraud “moves with the times” and that the SFO has seen “climate fraud cases grow exponentially” to involve millions of pounds and span multiple jurisdictions across the world. The SFO expects to see individuals and organizations attempting to take advantage of the growth in the sustainable-investment market by “manipulating consumer and investor behavior through social conditioning” by offering false investment opportunities that are purportedly beneficial to the environment but, in reality, only benefit the fraudsters.
