U.K. Law Commission Recommends Scrapping and Re-Writing U.K.'s Anti-Bribery Laws
The Law Commission of the United Kingdom, a non-political independent body established in 1965 to review and recommend reform where it is needed, recently issued a report entitled Reforming Bribery, that recommends significant changes to U.K.'s anti-bribery laws.
The Law Commission's report, which calls the current anti-bribery laws "out-dated" and "unfit", proposes that the U.K.'s numerous anti-bribery laws currently in place be repealed and replaced with two general offenses of Bribery, one concerned with the conduct of persons that pay bribes and one concerned with the recipient of the bribes. These offenses would be confined to activity of a business, professional or public nature.
In addition, the Law Commission also recommends the following two new anti-bribery offenses:
1. Bribery of a foreign public official; and
2. Corporate offense of negligently failing to prevent bribery by an employee or agent. It would be a defense to this crime that the company had adequate systems in place to prevent bribery.
The Law Commission also recommends extending the anti-bribery laws to cover foreign nationals who reside in the U.K. and conduct their business there.
The full version of Law Commission's final report can be found here.
Labels: FCPA, United Kingdom
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