Noticeboard
New Bribery Act
The Bribery Act 2010 was passed last month and will come into force later this year [http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2010/ukpga_20100023_en_1]. It represents a fundamental overhaul of previous corruption legislation which has long been criticised as being overly complicated and ineffective. The Act contains new criminal offences of bribing another person, receiving a bribe and bribery of foreign public officials, as well as a new criminal offence for commercial organisations of failing to prevent bribery. This new corporate offence has attracted a great deal of comment as it means that commercial organisations will have criminal liability (and be subject to an unlimited fine) if a person associated with that organisation bribes another person. It will however be a defence if the commercial organisation is able to prove that it had in place "adequate procedures" designed to prevent bribery. The Act requires the Secretary of State to issue guidance on procedures which commercial organisations can put in place. In a document published by the SFO in July 2009 entitled "Approach of the Serious Fraud Office to dealing with Overseas Corruption" [http://www.sfo.gov.uk/media/107247/approach%20of%20the%20serious%20fraud%20office%20v3.pdf], the SFO gave an indication of the matters it thought would be relevant to the issue of "adequate procedures", but we can expect much more detailed guidance in the near future prior to the Act coming into force. BCL Burton Copeland have been involved in a number of the leading corruption cases to come before the courts in recent years, including the SFO cases of Mabey & Johnson (overseas corruption and breach of sanctions against Iraq) and Robert John Dougall (joint UK and US investigation into overseas corruption). BCL also represent a UK-based businessman in connection with an application by the US Department of Justice to extradite him to the US to face charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) relating to the Bonny Island Project in Nigeria (involving the US company Kellogg Brown Root). Richard Sallybanks and Brian Spiro of BCL have delivered a number of presentations (both in the UK and overseas) to companies and other legal firms on the bribery and corruption legislation and the approach of the enforcement authorities. If you are interested in this, please contact them on either
