The Serious Fraud Office intends to confiscate shareholder dividends paid by companies convicted of criminal offences, the FT says, after it won approval for a civil recovery order on Thursday against the principal shareholder of a company that had admitted corruption. Mabey Engineering Holding agreed to repay the £131,201 dividend it received from Mabey & Johnson, which built bridges in Iraq and admitted corruption and breaches of UN sanctions in 2009 . Two former Mabey & Johnson executives went to prison after the company reported their behaviour to the SFO. The agreement, approved by the High Court and seen by the FT, marks the first time that the SFO has tried to recover proceeds of crime by targeting dividends paid in the UK. While the sum confiscated by the SFO is relatively small, lawyers warned that the precedent it set was potentially huge.