McGuireWoods London partner Francesca Titus questioned the significance of the UK Serious Fraud Office’s first use of an unexplained wealth order (UWO) in a Compliance Week article published on Feb. 10, 2025.
On Jan. 17, 2025, the SFO obtained its first UWO at the High Court in London in a bid to recover a £1.5 million property suspected of being purchased with the proceeds of a £100 million fraud. The order required Claire Schools, the ex-wife of convicted solicitor Timothy Schools, to explain how she acquired the property or risk having the asset seized by the SFO.
The order follows the recent confiscation of £1 million from Timothy Schools, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison for fraud in 2022. While SFO director Nick Ephgrave called the case a “milestone,” some legal experts remain skeptical of the agency’s ability to recover substantial assets tied to financial crime.
“It is interesting that the SFO is highlighting this as a positive when the criminality it is said to relate to is a fraud of more than £100 million, of which so far less than £2 million seems to have been recovered,” Titus said.