Businesses still ignorant of UK Bribery Act provisions – Deloitte
Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:09 GMT
Members of the Coldstream Guards band march past Buckingham Palace in London April 20, 2011. REUTERS/Toby Melville
By Luke Balleny
LONDON (TrustLaw) – A poll by the global accounting firm Deloitte has found that the majority of business professionals think there will be an increase in global anti-corruption enforcement next year, but say they are not familiar with the provisions of the UK Bribery Act, a Wednesday press release said.
The UK’s controversial new anti-bribery law, the UK Bribery Act, will come into effect on July 1 and will have jurisdiction over any company that “carries out business” in the UK.
“Businesses have less than three months to revise their anti-bribery compliance programmes and retrain their employees,” Joe Zier, a leader in Deloitte’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) consulting services practice, said.
“Some companies began work early to prepare for compliance. Going forward, organisations should focus on expanding their anti-corruption programmes beyond FCPA to fully address the new Bribery Act 2010 provisions,” he added.
Up until now, most global companies have tailored their anti-bribery compliance programmes to the FCPA, the 34 year old U.S. anti-corruption law. However, the UK Bribery Act differs from the FCPA in a number of ways. For example, unlike the FCPA, the UK Bribery Act covers bribes to both the public and private sector and does not make an exception for facilitation payments - small payments given to public officials to speed up a routine service.
Deloitte conducted the poll of over 1,000 professionals from a wide range of industries during a webcast on compliance with the FCPA.
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