Three SFO incompetents who also cleaned up over Tchenguiz – with bumper pay-offs!
Phillippa Williamson: allowed to work in Lake District two days a week
The Serious Fraud office has just paid Vincent Tchenguiz and his companies £3 million, plus another £3m in legal costs, but what of the other payments made by the SFO?
Bumper pay-offs to its incompetent staff who messed this case up, that is.
In 2013 Parliamentary Accounts Committee thoroughly castigated the SFO for the odd way in which senior staff left the organisation during the Tchenguiz case and the payouts they received. Will we ever know why the payments were made?
Richard Alderman, former SFO director: compo unknown … as yet
Phillippa Williamson joined as CEO at the SFO in 2008 and would go on to earn a salary of approximately £120,000.
She was ultimately the person in charge of the Tchenguiz debacle.
Somehow she became entitled to a pay-off of a staggering £513,694 after being made “redundant” in April 2012 just a month before the judicial review of what would go on to become the failed Tchenguiz case.
Subsequently, it would also be found she had been wrongly delegated with decision-making powers by the then director Richard Alderman.
Williamson was also criticised for being allowed, by Alderman, to work two days a week from home – in the Lake District. She was then also paid large amounts to travel to London to do some work on the three days a week it is asserted that she appeared in her office.
Current employment is not known. Repayment to the state £0.00
Then we come to Chief Capability Officer and then Chief Operating Officer Christian Bailes.
Christian Bailes: apparently an expert in ethical breaches at Control Risks
Total payout £487,585 owing to redundancy again, agreed by Mr Alderman. This included a payment for staying on requested by Mr Green “to ensure continuity”.
Current location: seems to have just appeared at Control Risks. More here Repayment to the state £0.00
As the article states, “Chris manages a broad array of complex investigations into fraud, corruption and other ethical breaches, supported by teams in the UK, Germany, France, Russia, Benelux, Nordics, Iberia, and Africa.”
Both payments criticised by Parliament along with the actions of Alderman.
It seems a coincidence the people at the top of the SFO got things so wrong in the Tchenguiz investigation and suddenly left without a blemish on their record.
As for the much criticised Director Alderman himself, he also left the SFO just as the Tchenguiz case collapsed.
“I have been working with some international institutions and NGOs dealing with anti-corruption on the front line. This is what I wanted to do because I had met a number of individuals who inspired me. Recent examples are the Convention on Business Integrity in Nigeria and an initiative by the Egyptian Junior Business Association aimed at the vibrant SME sector in Egypt. I have also had the privilege of meeting individuals involved in the radical transformation of the procurement practices of Moscow City Council.”
More on this here
In a stinging report published in July last year, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee berated the SFO for presiding over a “catalogue of errors and poor judgement” in doling out pay-offs to failed executives.
The MPs said: “The former director’s decisions on redundancy and severance packages showed a disregard for the proper use of taxpayers’ money. Mr Alderman failed to follow due process by deciding the amounts in special severance packages and by not seeking alternative placements for staff.
“He ignored legal advice available to him and did not gain the necessary Cabinet Office and Treasury approval for payments. He failed to comply with the principles that should underpin the use of public money.”
The committee published a letter that Mr Alderman sent to it days after a gruelling evidence session before it in which he admitted it was “justified” in criticising his actions and offered his “deep and unreserved apology”.
The report found that Mr Alderman’s actions and decisions took place amid a culture where external advice and scrutiny was “to be avoided wherever possible” and with an “apparent need for secrecy”.
It said: “This catalogue of errors amounts to a case study in how not to run a public body… We look to the Cabinet Office and the Treasury for safeguards to ensure there is no repeat of this debacle.”
In a stinging report published in July last year, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee berated the SFO for presiding over a “catalogue of errors and poor judgement” in doling out pay-offs to failed executives.
The MPs said: “The former director’s decisions on redundancy and severance packages showed a disregard for the proper use of taxpayers’ money. Mr Alderman failed to follow due process by deciding the amounts in special severance packages and by not seeking alternative placements for staff.
“He ignored legal advice available to him and did not gain the necessary Cabinet Office and Treasury approval for payments. He failed to comply with the principles that should underpin the use of public money.”
The committee published a letter that Mr Alderman sent to it days after a gruelling evidence session before it in which he admitted it was “justified” in criticising his actions and offered his “deep and unreserved apology”.
The report found that Mr Alderman’s actions and decisions took place amid a culture where external advice and scrutiny was “to be avoided wherever possible” and with an “apparent need for secrecy”.
It said: “This catalogue of errors amounts to a case study in how not to run a public body… We look to the Cabinet Office and the Treasury for safeguards to ensure there is no repeat of this debacle.”
All those who have comments for the Competition and Markets Authority inquiry into leasehold management should send them in by September 19 2014 to:
Residential Property Management Services Study Competition and Markets Authority
Victoria House
37 Southampton Row
London,
WC1B 4ADpropertymanagers.study@cma.gsi.gov.uk
The CMA will publish its full report by the end of 2014.
With their track record at the SFO, it sounds like they have the perfect attributes to work for ARHM!
ME, spot on, SFO should move on to ARMH and similar.
Phillippa Williamson, after 4 years at SFO takes a redundancy/payoff of £513K. If anything it should be 4 weeks pay.These people are having a laugh. She should be in prison with no future pension etc. These people take these posts knowing that they are not really answerable to anyone.
The SFO have paid out NOTHING. It is the public/taxpayers money that is being paid out. Money that could go to the NHS etc etc etc. If you ex SFO people have any souls, at a minimum, pay your hand outs back
We had the OFT farce into Peverel Management Services and Cirrus Communication in Price Fixing.
Information regarding, The Price Fixing Scam was first brought to the SFO notice who decided it was not SERIOUS ENOUGH for them to investigate so passed it on to the OFT who spent nearly £500,000 and then after 3 years allowed the Scammers to get off Scot Free?
The Police have been asked to look into the workings of PMSL, regarding the sale of House Managers Flats, don’t hold your breadth.
The answer is simple:
As Trevor Bradley commented on the Tchenguiz article, these people care more about themselves and their pensions than they do about the people they pretend to serve.
Of course ALL the senior people in the state’s employment will ensure that if one of them has to leave it will be on what the common people [thats us] see as excessively generous terms.
It is time that a few of them were “hung out to dry” with a prison sentence and no pension. They have, to quote the police regulations, “brought the service into disrepute”.
Just as a policeman has now been charged with unlawfully killing a man .. so should these failures be brought to book
happy thoughts
Vincent Tchenguiz settled for £3m plus £3m contribution towards legal fees(not the £200m he had been claiming). Now Robert Tchenguiz has settled for £1m(not the £100m he had been claiming)
Could it be that political pressure was brought upon the SFO not to proceed with the case, on the grounds that the Tchenguiz accounts would have been laid bare? This is something i very much doubt either Tchenguiz brothers would have wanted, but crucially a court case would have exposed the behaviour of the financial institutions that backed the Tchenguiz brothers.
Below is copied from https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/attorney-general
The Attorney General is chief legal adviser to the Crown and has a number of independent public interest functions, as well as overseeing the Law Officers’ departments. These are:
• the Crown Prosecution Service
• the Serious Fraud Office
• Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate
Current role holder: The Rt Hon Jeremy Wright MP
Jeremy Wright MP was appointed Attorney General on 15 July 2014. He is the Conservative MP for Kenilworth and Southam.
The SFO Annual report ( signed by David Green, Director on 23 June 2014 ) mentions the SFO is facing civil proceedings by Tchenguiz Brothers to obtain substantial damages at approximately £ 250 – £300 Mil .
I remember seeing a recent newspaper report that the SFO was planning to defend the case.
Was the decision for SFO to retreat and eat humble pie decided by the new Attorney General who appointed on 15th July ?
Correction for missing word :
Was the decision for SFO to retreat and eat humble pie decided by the new Attorney General who WAS appointed on 15th July ?
ME, a very valid point with a different twist to this disgraceful scenario. Nothing would surprise me these days what thes powers that be get up to. As long as “they” can keep “taking” taxpayers money, and get away with it, it will never stop. 99% of them dont even know the price of bread and milk, so have no sense of values whatsoever