The Bribery Act 2010: Briefing and Guidance

The Bribery Act 2010 comes into force in April 2011 against the background of increasing international pressure for a concerted crackdown on bribery and corruption, exemplified by the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials, to which the UK signed up in 1998, and the judicial view that "There can be no doubt that corruption of foreign government officials or foreign government ministers is at the top end of serious corporate offending." While bribery is a crime at common law, and also under various statutes from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Bribery Act significantly extends the range of current UK offences.

Its effect is to demand a culture change, in which no UK business any longer regards the payment of bribes in certain jurisdictions as a regrettable fact of life, but would forego business rather than pay a bribe. Indeed, in a manner reminiscent of the money laundering legislation, it effectively