The Bribery Act 2010 will come into force in April 2011 and it will create four new criminal offences. The importance of this to businesses is that one of the offences will mean that individuals found to be involved in bribery can be subjected to imprisonment and an unlimited fine.
To ensure that employers don’t fall foul of the Bribery Act, they must take immediate steps to assess whether their businesses are at a high risk of being the subject of corruption or if they do business with high risk countries, such as India, China and Russia. They must also ensure that they have clear, practical and accessible policies and procedures on anti corruption.
Although large companies do generally have anti corruption policies already in place, it is estimated that approximately 95% of the world’s business is carried out by small to medium enterprises (SME’s) who do not have the same financial and human resources. It is the SME’s who are likely to need to amend, for example their disciplinary procedures and their Whistle blowing procedures to ensure that bribery and anticorruption are dealt with appropriately.
Although there is currently no set definition of bribery one area that is going to be questionable for any business is the giving and receiving of gifts and the use of hospitality.
In reality where an event such as a golf day is used as a marketing tool and representatives of a number of companies go along, it is unlikely to ever be construed as bribery. Caution must be exercised in respect of the initiation to golf from the prospective customer where you will be the only person. For that reason all employers must ensure that they have a strict policy on the acceptance of gifts and hospitality which is applied to all staff, including directors.
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