High cost criminal cases

On this page:

What is a high cost criminal case?
The contract
Complex fraud cases
For more information

What is a high cost criminal case?

A Very High Cost Case (VHCC) is one where

the trial is likely to last for more than 40 days
where the trial is likely to last between 25 and 40 days and meets the criteria below.

Trial that last between 25 and 40 days are VHCCs if they are:

terrorism prosecutions
SFO prosecutions.

or any two of:

at least 10,000 pages of the prosecution evidence
at least 10,000 pages of the unused or third party material
more than five defendants
fraud or serious drugs cases where the value of the fraud or drugs exceeds £1m.

The LSCs Complex Crime Unit (CCU) manages all VHCCs.

The contract

We have re-issued panel member and panel advocate contracts.

View or download the amended documents on the Crime contracts>Very High Cost Case Contracts page.

Complex fraud cases

The CCU manages membership of the Specialist Fraud Panel (SFP). This was set up under the previous contracting system to make sure only these firms could represent clients in VHCC fraud cases.

For more information

Please contact the Complex Crime Unit with any questions.

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Last updated: 03 March 2008