Corporate Internal Investigations: Forensic Accounting Under Legal Professional Privilege

Internal investigations must be conducted via external legal counsel to attract legal professional privilege. Direct instruction of forensic accountants by the company without lawyer involvement risks loss of privilege over investigation reports.

Forensic accountants instructed by counsel preserve and analyse financial evidence, quantify wrongdoing, and produce reports advising on regulatory exposure. Privilege allows the board to understand the full picture before deciding on SFO or FCA self-reporting.

SFO 2025 cooperation guidance requires facilitating overseas data access and may require waiving privilege over factual accounts while maintaining privilege over legal advice. Forensic accountants prepare the financial evidence packs for disclosure.

Before self-reporting, corporates must understand misconduct scope, financial benefit, victim loss, and FTPF prevention procedure adequacy. The FTPF offence has been in force since 1 September 2025, adding urgency to prevention procedure assessment.