The UK Bribery Act, enacted in the United Kingdom on 8 April 2010, is one of the most significant issues to affect businesses and increases the risk of doing business for regional companies.
The law applies not only to British nationals and UK companies but to any commercial organisations even if they carry on only “part of a business” in the UK.
Under the new rules, companies with UK operations will be criminally liable for bribery and corruption in their business, supply chain or sales channels irrespective of where the bribery offences take place.
The bribe does not need to be directed at a government official, the provision is triggered even if the bribe relates to business activities amongst private entities.
The law creates a new strict liability offence for any commercial organization which has a “close connection” with the UK for failing to prevent bribery, with the defense of showing that it has adequate (anti-bribery) procedures in place.
This is without any requirement for the prosecuting authority to show that any directors or partners were directly involved in the crime.
The maximum jail term for bribery is now 10 years and companies convicted will also face unlimited fines.
Although some of its features are similar to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), this law is likely to have a bigger impact on regional businesses.
It uses UK standards of what constitutes bribery and disregards local custom and practice, unless the practice is permitted by written law. Unlike the FCPA, it also makes no allowances for small facilitation payments consistent with local culture.
Related articles by Zemanta
- UK companies face tough new bribery laws (telegraph.co.uk)
- Tough new bribery rules require planning (telegraph.co.uk)
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Thomas Fox. Thomas Fox said: RT @globaledd: UK bribery law escalates business risk of regional companies – Business Intelligence Middle East – http://bit.ly/dkEV8B [...]