LONDON â€" Britain’s Serious Fraud Office faced renewed embarrassment on Thursday after it admitted that it had lost thousands of documents linked to an investigation into the British aerospace giant BAE Systems.
The office has been trying to rejuvenate its reputation under its new leader, David Green, after widespread criticism of a botched investigation into the role of the property tycoon Vincent Tchenguiz in the collapse of Icelandic bank Kaupthing.
On Thursday, the British authority, which is currently investigating several cases related to the rigging of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, said it had lost around 3 percent of the material connected to a case against BAE Systems â€" or 32,000 documents, 81 audio tapes and other electronic media. The case involved BAE’s payments to a Tanzanian employee. As part of a settlement with the office in 2010, BAE paid 30 million pounds (more than $46 million) to educational projects in Tanzania.
The office said Thursday that it had discovered the loss in May after it accidentally sent unauthorized material to individuals connected to the case.
“Any loss of data is a serious matter and the S.F.O. has taken action to ensure no further material can be wrongly sent out,†a spokesman for the regulator said in a statement.
The office said in the statement that it had carried out an independent investigation into the data loss, which has led it to increase its data protection processes.
The data loss comes just as the regulator is flexing its muscles after years of underinvestment and failure to catch fraud in Britain’s corporate sector.
Last year, the office was ordered to pay most of the legal costs of Mr. Tchenguiz, who also is suing it for about $350 million over the mishandling of the three-year investigation. The regulator denies the charges.
Supported by an increased annual budget, the office has so far charged three people, including a former Citigroup trader and two brokers, with fraud related to the manipulation of Libor. The three will face criminal trials later this year.
