Ireland’s FBI White Collar Crime Kicks Off In Coming Weeks

The government says it is pressing ahead with its plans to create a new, strengthened anti-criminal agency, and intends to publish proposed new laws establishing the agency in the coming weeks.

The Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA) will be created as a separate entity to replace the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE), which is currently part of the Corporate Administration.

Tanist and Minister for Enterprise Leo Varadkar previously described the proposed new agency as the « Irish FBI… [for] Business crime.

He said on Tuesday that a proposed new law to establish the agency, the Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2021, will be presented to Dell in September.

ODCE will be taken out of the division and reconstituted as a CEA into a commission structure, with a larger budget than its predecessor and with a larger staffing pool.

The government initially suggested that it would initially have the same powers as the ODCE, which would include investigating suspected violations of company law and overseeing the roles of insolvency practitioners, such as liquidators and recipients.

« The new powers and further enhancements to the new authority are matters that will continue to be actively considered, » the administration said.

It said an additional 14 civilian employees would be assigned to the Civil Aviation Authority, which would be overseen by up to three commissioners. The number of Garda Síochána members loaned to the new agency will increase from seven, as is currently the case with the ODCE, to 16.

staff

Mr Varadkar said CEA’s total staff would be 50 per cent larger than the CEE office, whose budget was recently raised by €1m to just over €6m.

We’ve seen how complicated and complex some of these things are [company law] It could be the violations and how difficult it is to secure prosecutions,” Mr. Varadkar said. “As a legally independent agency, CEA will have more autonomy to hire the specialist staff it needs. My administration will continue to work with the new CEA to ensure it has the appropriate legislative tools to take on corporate law enforcement.”

Ian Drennan, director of corporate law enforcement, recently revealed in his annual report that he has so far received only two additional police investigators out of the six he requested from the force nearly a year ago to help deal with a large white-collar population. crime investigations.

On Tuesday, Mr. Drennan said the Cabinet’s approval of the proposed bill « developed in a timely manner. »

« The government’s approval of legislation paving the way for the creation of the CEA represents a watershed moment in Ireland’s strategic approach to tackling economic and white-collar crime, » he said.

Major ongoing investigations include allegations of data mismanagement at the Independent News and Media publishing house, now called Mediahuis Ireland, as well as allegations of corporate mismanagement and financial controls in the Football Association of Ireland.