At Last the United Kingdom Confronts Bribery: Will the Draft Bribery Bill be Enough to Silence its Critics?

摘要

After many years of sustained criticism, the United Kingdom may be on the verge of overhauling its anti-bribery legislation, last substantively redrafted in 1906. The authors consider the principal ramifications of the draft bribery bill for business were it to become law in its current form, including: (1) how facilitation payments would be dealt with; (2) the offence of bribery of a foreign public official and the defence for payments that are 'legitimately due'; and (3) most significant of all the proposed changes, the new corporate offence of 'failure of commercial organisations to prevent bribery'.