Kathleen Harris Discusses Top White Collar Crime Cases of 2026 in Law360

Kathleen Harris, head of Arnold & Porter’s London office, was quoted in the recent Law360 article, “The Top White-Collar Crime Cases In 2026: Midyear Review,” about two of the most significant white-collar crime developments in the UK thus far in 2026.

Kathleen commented on the Serious Fraud Office’s (SFO) first corporate plea settlement in five years, in which defense contractor Ultra Electronics agreed to pay £15 million after admitting it failed to prevent bribery in pursuit of contracts in Oman and Algeria. She told the publication the agreement showed that despite the SFO’s shift toward tackling offending with a domestic impact, the agency remains willing to deal with clear-cut instances of overseas corruption.

“It is debatable whether the company would have reported the issues if they were uncovered today,” she said. “Both the domestic and global appetite for tackling corruption are much different than was the case in 2018 when the original self-report was filed.”

Kathleen also weighed in on the collapse of the SFO’s decade-long prosecution in the London Mining case, which fell apart on the eve of trial after the agency discovered roughly 600,000 items of investigation material it had failed to process. She said the case raises serious questions about the SFO’s approach to disclosure and its broader credibility.

“The monetary cost to the taxpayer is one thing, but the loss of credibility means it can have an impact on future practices and cases and give rise to an existential threat to the SFO’s future,” Kathleen noted.

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