Is it right that a company which has committed fraud on more than one occasion should avoid criminal prosecution and should continue to be awarded government contracts?
Guardian, 3 July:
"The outsourcing company Serco has been fined nearly £23m as part of a settlement with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) over electronic tagging contracts.
"The firm said it was “mortified”. It said its UK subsidiary Serco Geografix had taken responsibility for three offences of fraud and two of false accounting between 2010 and 2013, related to understating profits from its electronic monitoring contracts with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). It was fined £19.2m and ordered to pay £3.7m in costs.
"An agreement with the SFO, which is subject to approval by the courts, will result in a lengthy investigation ending without Serco facing criminal charges.
"The issue was first reported by Serco to the SFO in 2013.
"In 2013 Serco paid a £70m settlement to the MoJ after the firm and fellow outsourcing group G4S faced allegations of charging for tagging people who were either dead, in jail, or had left the country."
Presumably the rationale behind this is that, within such a large enterprise, it would be difficult to identify exactly who authorised, was aware of and carried out these frauds and that criminal court proceedings may be protracted, very expensive and run the risk of being unsuccessful.
However, surely if a small company were to be involved in such illegality those authorising and carrying out the illegal acts would be prosecuted, as would private individuals. Shouldn't justice be seen to be done and punishment meted out equally?