Sky News has learnt that a number of people who were suspects in the SFO’s inquiry were informed in recent weeks that they were no longer under investigation.

Those individuals are not thought to include Sir John Rose, Rolls-Royce’s former chief executive, who is said to be one of several people who remain within the scope of the SFO’s inquiry.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on Sir John’s part.

The agency entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with Rolls-Royce – arguably the most famous name in British engineering – in January 2017, with the company paying the biggest-ever UK fine for bribery and corruption.

Its misconduct took place across at least seven countries, including China, India, Nigeria and Russia.

The DPA was struck following a joint investigation with the US Department of Justice and authorities in Brazil.

The SFO accounted for the lion’s share of the financial cost to Rolls-Royce, with the UK settlement totalling more than £510m and the overall bill amounting to £671m.

In response to an enquiry from Sky News, an SFO spokeswoman confirmed that “some individuals were notified that they are no longer suspects in the Rolls-Royce investigation”.

“The investigation continues into a number of individuals,” she added.

News of the SFO’s decision to drop its pursuit of several individuals in the Rolls-Royce investigation comes at an important time for the agency.

This week, the long-awaited criminal trial of four former Barclays executives gets under way, a decade after the multibillion pound capital-raisings which kept the bank out of state hands during the financial crisis.

Lisa Osofsky, the SFO’s new director, has pledged to speed up the agency’s investigations and is reviewing evidence in more than 70 cases to assess why charging decisions were taking so long.

Other UK blue-chip companies including G4S, GlaxoSmithKline, Patisserie Holdings and Serco are the subject of SFO probes, with DPAs having been used infrequently since their introduction in 2014.

Besides Rolls-Royce, Tesco was the most prominent party to a DPA, paying nearly £130m to settle a case relating to its 2015 profit overstatement scandal.

However, the SFO’s case against a number of former Tesco executives collapsed last month, dealing a blow to the agency.

The SFO’s investigation into Rolls-Royce had already been under way for more than four years when it reached the plea deal with the company in 2017.

Reports this time last year suggested that charging decisions would be made in the Rolls-Royce case by last April, ahead of the departure of Ms Osofsky’s predecessor, David Green.

Mr Green has since joined Slaughter & May, the City law firm which is an adviser to Rolls-Royce, but is not directly involved in the case.

The identity of the people who were notified that they were no longer part of the SFO’s Rolls-Royce probe was unclear on Monday, although one source said they were largely “peripheral” figures in the case.

Rolls-Royce declined to comment.

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