| Businesses are being
invited to have their say on guidance
designed to help them implement legal
measures designed to strengthen the UK’s
stance against bribery. The Bribery Act,
which will take effect from April 2011,
will encourage businesses to adopt robust
anti-bribery safeguards. Its measures
include:
- introducing a new corporate offence
of failure to prevent bribery by persons
working on behalf of a business,
anywhere in the world. A business can
avoid conviction if it can show that it
has adequate procedures in place to
prevent bribery.
- making it a criminal offence to
give, promise or offer a bribe and to
request, agree to receive or accept a
bribe either at home or abroad. The
measures cover bribery of a foreign
public official.
- increasing the maximum penalty for
bribery from seven to 10 years’
imprisonment, with an unlimited fine.
Ahead of the Bribery Act coming into
force, the government has launched a
consultation exercise on guidance on
procedures that commercial organisations
can put in place to prevent persons
associated with them from bribing. The
consultation runs until 9 November.
Businesses that export goods or have a
presence overseas are among those being
advised to start preparing now for the
Bribery Act.
The UK is currently a respectable 17th
out of 180 countries and territories
ranked in Transparency International’s
Corruption Perception Index (CPI), which
measures perceived levels of public sector
corruption.
However, it is a major exporter and UK
companies and subsidiaries are also
present in many countries well down the
CPI. The World Bank estimates that more
than £1,000 billion is paid annually in
bribes worldwide and industries in which
UK businesses are involved – including
aerospace, construction, defence and
extraction – are known as high risk areas
for bribery.
LINKS:
Bribery Act Consultation |
