Be prepared – what to do if authorities raid your offices

The FSA, Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and police forces are increasingly focusing on financial crime and fraud, including corruption, insider dealing, money laundering or offences under the Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA). But what should you do if you find yourself suddenly arrested or your offices being raided as part of an FSA investigation?

A financial crime investigation is almost certainly going to involve a search or ‘dawn raid’ into all premises associated with the offence. This may apply even if you are an innocent party. Homes and offices face the risk of being raided without warning – often in the early morning.

Any offence is an “arrestable offence” as far as the police are concerned. However, any arrest must be necessary. This means that a police officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that you have committed an offence, or are about to commit an offence. Reasons for an arrest can be, by way of example, a failure to ascertain an individual’s name and address, to prevent injury or to allow the prompt investigation of the offence.

Importantly, the police must inform the individual what they are being arrested on suspicion of, and also caution them. These facts must be recorded in the arresting officer’s notebook. If there are reasonable grounds for believing that the person may present a danger to himself or others, then the officer may conduct a search.

Firms should put in place a search and seizure policy and make sure all staff are aware of this. The first person to find out about the search can be the first person to arrive at the office that morning or your receptionists or security. Being confronted by a team from the FSA, the SFO or the police can be a daunting prospect and it is important that all staff are briefed on what to do and who to contact.

The first and most important thing if you are confronted with a search warrant is to contact your lawyers. There is a prescribed legal process to be followed when obtaining a warrant and conducting a search. If this is not followed the search may be unlawful and the items seized may be inadmissable in evidence in any subsequent proceedings. For example, there can be an error on the face of the search warrant such as the warrant being granted for the home address but the enforcement authority attempting to search an office address. It is important to identify these issues as early as possible and for this, you need to have the right legal advice.

During the search, the officers will go through your files and have the power to seize all material specified in the warrant. When there is a significant amount of paperwork involved, the officers will use what are called “seize and sift” powers which allow them to seize as much of the material as is necessary to establish its contents, if it is not reasonably practicable to establish the nature of the contents on the premises. This, in practical terms, means that you could see whole filing cabinets removed.