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MARK AUSTIN THOMAS: The British government is planning to adopt a tough US-style approach to combating fraud and other large-scale financial crime. From London, Marketplace’s Stephen Beard has the story.

STEPHEN BEARD: The UK government believes that large-scale fraud is rising here due to the relative leniency of the British system. In his country a convicted fraudster is likely to serve less than five years in jail.

The government wants to emulate some features of the American approach : much longer sentences, and plea bargaining for example.

The UK’s main business organization, the CBI, welcomes any crackdown on fraud, but says deputy head John Cridland, they don’t want the American-style shackling of defendants and other forms of humiliation.

JOHN CRIDLAND: We would take the view that the American system throws the book at individuals in really quite a strident and arguably unpleasant way.

Large-scale fraud is reckoned to cost the UK economy more than $25 billion a year.

In London, this is Stephen Beard for Marketplace.