City of London Police will start to use external law firms on fraud cases for the first time following funding approval from the Home Office.

The police force, which specialises in financial crime, is in the process of establishing a panel of firms and investigators to offer advice to victims of fraud and assist police with asset recovery, which will be trialled over the next two years.

Firms will be formally appointed to the panel following meetings of a working group made up of public agencies, law firms and investigators.

A number of firms including Mishcon de Reya, Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) and prosecution boutique Edmonds Marshall McMahon (EMM), have been appointed to the working group initially. Kroll is also in the group to offer investigations services.

Representatives from the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), CPS, and National Crime Agency (NCA) are also part of the working group, though there are not yet plans for these agencies to start engaging the external advisers on fraud work.

The initiative was awarded an undisclosed grant from the Police Innovation Fund in April and will launch this month.

The City of London Police is the UK’s lead force for economic crime investigations. The Lawyer understands the panel is being established to provide public law enforcement with more resources to investigate and prosecute fraud, and to allow police to focus on investigations while farming out confiscation and asset recovery to private firms.

Firms will be allocated on a case-by-case basis and the instruction will have to be signed off by the victim of fraud on each case. The victim or a third-party funder will shoulder the bulk of the cost.

The panel is being run internally by detective superintendent Maria Woodall, City police head of fraud investigations David Manley and detective inspector Craig Mullish.

In a statement to The Lawyer Woodall said: “This innovative new scheme will hopefully allow us to be more flexible and creative in how we identify and seize criminal assets to get those funds back to the victims of crime and out of the hands of criminals.

“We’re looking to use the private sector’s ability to take back these assets using civil legislation whilst freeing up time for our officers to concentrate on building the criminal cases against those individuals and groups.

“The pilot will allow us to test out this partnership and see if it delivers the benefits for victims, law enforcement and the private sector that we believe it will,” she added.

The group is expected to grow in size as the police force attempts to create a tiered-structure of law firms to provide advice to all victims of fraud, whatever their budget.

Private practice lawyers already onboard include Mishcon disputes partner Rob Wynn Jones and EMM founding partners Kate McMahon and Tamlyn Edmonds.