The coalition government to create a single agency to take on the work of tackling serious economic crime that is dispersed across a number of Government departments and agencies.
So George Osborne, The Chancellor of the Exchequer, told a dinner at Mansion House, London on June 16.
He said: “We take white collar crime as seriously as other crime and we are determined to simplify the confusing and overlapping responsibilities in this area in order to improve detection and enforcement.” Among reforms to come in by 2012, the Financial Services Authority will cease. As the regulator of the financial services sector, its work included prosecutions and fines of firms for fraud and security breaches. On the day of the speech, for example, the FSA banned three mortgage brokers from working in the financial services industry; and fined two of the brokers £294,500 and £120,000, for mortgage fraud, a crime thought to have played a part in the recent financial crisis.
