As discussed in our
April article, the Bribery Act (the Act) is
now in force and applies to all companies which operate their
business (or part of their business) in the UK. As a result, to the
extent that companies have not already put in place procedures to
ensure that they comply with the Act, they must now do so as soon
as possible.
As already mentioned, one of the key new offences under the Act
is the failure of an organisation to prevent bribery; this is a
strict liability offence and the only defence available to
companies is to demonstrate that they have adequate procedures in
place to prevent bribery which are effectively embedded in the
company and monitored.
While 'adequate procedures' is not defined under the
Act, the Ministry of Justice has stated that they expect these to
be 'reasonable and proportionate' to the size of the
company and the risks of bribery that they face; as such, there is
no 'one size fits all' approach to adequate procedures
