(Reuters) -Britain's fraud office said on Monday a court had dismissed its plea to adjourn a hearing against two former Serco executives, after the regulator found errors with disclosures it had made in its case related to prisoner-tagging contracts.
The judge directed the jury to return verdicts of not guilty, after the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) sought to pursue a retrial that could remedy the errors made in the "non-disclosure of certain materials", the SFO said in a statement.
"We are considering how best to undertake an assessment to prevent this from happening in the future," it added.
A long-running investigation by the watchdog into how Serco, one of Britain's biggest contractors, billed the government over electronic tags for prisoners turned a corner in 2019, when Serco and the SFO agreed to settle the case for $24 million.
However, a separate, criminal investigation into executives linked to the contract continued. Two former directors part of Serco's units were charged https://www.reuters.com/article/serco-group-sfo/update-2-uks-sfo-charges-two-former-serco-directors-in-electronic-tagging-probe-idINL8N28Q34U?edition-redirect=in with fraud and false accounting later that year.
Andrew Katzen, partner at Hickman & Rose, and solicitor for one of the directors said the outcome was "a welcome vindication of my client."