The Serious Fraud Office and ENRC gave themselves a day to resolve the legal battle

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The UK’s Serious Fraud Office and Eurasian Natural Resources Group have given themselves 24 hours to resolve a dispute over the agency’s conduct in its investigation of the Kazakhstan mining group.

ENRCThe civil trial against the SFO, scheduled to begin on Monday, was paused for a day while settlement talks took place.

The case is part of a legal battle being waged by ENRC against the agency over its conduct during the 10-year investigation, which has left the SFO with costs that could run into millions of pounds.

This latest dispute concerns whether SFO leaked information to the media during an investigation into allegations of corruption at ENRC, which the agency has strongly denied. The case involves two former senior SFO staff and the trial is expected to run for seven weeks.

The SFO and ENRC confirmed on Monday that settlement discussions were ongoing but declined to comment further.

The parties will update the court on Tuesday on whether an agreement has been reached and the trial will continue as planned if negotiations fail.

The dispute adds to the list of problems for the agency, which has struggled to get back on its feet in recent years after previous director Lisa Osofsky saw a number of problems. trust is revoked about prosecutorial errors and closed several high-profile investigations.

Director Nick Ephgrave, a former police officer who took the helm a year ago, trying to rebuild the agency using a variety of investigative techniques borrowed from the police force and filled in the agency’s high number of vacancies.

The London High Court found the SFO Take responsibility for missteps in the ENRC case resulted in unnecessary costs for the Kazakhstan corporation.

The agency set aside £237.7 million to cover legal costs related to the ENRC case in its latest set of accounts. The mining group had sought up to $1 billion in costs and lost revenue from the criminal investigation, although in his December ruling, Justice David Waksman indicated that damages would not be “amount of money.” as ENRC requested.”

The SFO launched an investigation into ENRC in 2013 but closed it last year citing “insufficient admissible evidence for prosecution”.