The Bribery Bill

On 25 March 2009 the UK Government published its draft Bribery

Bill (the 'Bill'). The Bill proposes broad changes to the

law on bribery and if enacted, would make significant impact on the

way charities based or doing business in the UK operate.

Irrespective of whether or not a new Bribery Bill comes into

force this year, it is important for potentially affected charities

to ensure that adequate procedures and bribery law compliance

programmes are in place as good compliance procedures can help in

limiting the scope of sanctions which might be imposed on a charity

should the cases of bribery be discovered.

What Is An Offence?

As one would expect the Bill targets both those who pay and

those who receive bribes, whilst also creating a separate offence

for the bribing of foreign officials and introducing a new

corporate offence of failure to prevent bribery within your

organisation. This...