Overview

On 14 September, the Ministry of Justice issued a consultation paper, Consultation on guidance about commercial organisations preventing bribery. Section 7 of the Bribery Act, which comes into force in April 2011, creates a new "corporate offence" which can be committed by commercial organisations where they fail to prevent the payment of bribes on their behalf.

Organisations will have a defence to the offence where they can demonstrate that they had ‘adequate procedures’ in place to prevent bribes being paid. Section 9 of the Act requires the Secretary of State to publish guidance on the nature of ‘adequate procedures’. The Consultation contains the first draft of the Government's guidance and invites responses.

The Draft Guidance also contains some Illustrative examples intended to focus on areas of business which present real risks of bribery for many organisations, and each is accompanied by a list of questions for organisations to consider if faced with similar scenarios. The consultation period closes on 8 November, with final Guidance due for publication ‘early in the New Year.’ Businesses should be considering, if they are not already doing so, how to ensure that effective compliance programmes are developed and implemented, as far as possible by April 2011, and may also wish to respond to the Consultation. This briefing aims to assist with both.

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