2016 is the year to get active – on your anti-corruption practice

Australian companies who do business overseas would be wise to watch closely as a Senate inquiry into foreign bribery moves to finalise its report. As we noted last year ( here), the inquiry's focus is reforming the law to eliminate foreign corrupt practices. Submissions, which have now closed, were made to the inquiry by academics, policy groups and corporations. While these submissions were authored by a broad range of interests, including industry bodies and multinationals like BHP Billiton, a number of suggested reforms feature prominently. We highlight some of these below.

Parents exposed

Australia's prohibitions on foreign bribery, which are contained in Division 70 of the Criminal Code, currently do not recognise the inherent bond between parent companies and their subsidiaries. This means that if a foreign-registered subsidiary of an Australian parent company engages in conduct that would otherwise fall foul of the foreign bribery laws: