Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, how many allegations of bribery of overseas parties by UK companies the Serious Fraud Office has received in each year since August 2012.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) does not hold a discernible record of allegations relating to bribery prior to 2013. The number of referrals for the period 2013 to September 2016 that contain allegations of bribery or corruption are provided in the following table. SFO records categorise referral data as relating to fraud and or bribery and corruption but do not differentiate between allegations of domestic or overseas bribery. To determine such information would require a manual review of each file, which would incur a disproportionate cost.

Note: These records are maintained for internal management purposes only, as such they do not form part of any official record