LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter
Whatsapp
Telegram
Copy link

A proposal to widen the ambit of the UK Bribery Act could spell trouble for Indian companies. Vandana Chatlani reports

In August 2013, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) began investigating a £23 million (US$38 million) fraud at Sustainable AgroEnergy, a company selling biofuel investment products involving jatropha tree plantations in Southeast Asia. This was the SFO’s first investigation under the UK’s Bribery Act 2010, which came into force in July 2011. Since then, the SFO has launched inquiries into several companies including Gyrus Group, a UK subsidiary of Olympus Corporation, and its parent, for “misleading, false or deceptive” accounts; Rolls-Royce, for alleged acts of bribery and corruption; and Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation and its subsidiaries in Africa and Kazakhstan for alleged fraud and corruption. No one denies the SFO’s determination in probing and stamping out corrupt practices, but many have questioned its relative quietness since the introduction of the Bribery Act, especially given the act’s extraterritorial reach. Section 7 makes UK companies with a presence overseas, and international companies with a UK presence, liable for a failure to prevent bribery.

“The current section 7 offence – which creates a form of ‘strict’ corporate liability for bribery which never existed prior to the enactment of the Bribery Act 2010 – is a powerful weapon in the SFO’s arsenal,” says Aaron Stephens, a partner in the corporate crime and investigations department at Berwin Leighton Paisner.

You must be a subscribersubscribersubscribersubscriber to read this content, please subscribesubscribesubscribesubscribe today.

For group subscribers, please click here to access.
Interested in group subscription? Please contact us.

你需要登录去解锁本文内容。欢迎注册账号。如果想阅读月刊所有文章,欢迎成为我们的订阅会员成为我们的订阅会员

已有集团订阅,可点击此处继续浏览。
如对集团订阅感兴趣,请联络我们

LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter
Whatsapp
Telegram
Copy link