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ARTICLE · 20 SEPTEMBER 2009

The Bribery Bill

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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.

United KingdomCorporate/Commercial Law
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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 latter offence will be committed if:

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