Companies might want to think more critically about entering a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.K. Serious Fraud Office and, instead, take their chances with a trial following a trio of high-profile corruption cases in which the SFO failed to secure individual convictions after the companies entered plea deals for related offenses.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal,...