LONDON, Nov 21 - Employers who turn a blind eye to corruption face up to 10 years in jail as part of a radical overhaul of Britain’s bribery laws proposed by the British Law Commission on Thursday.
The commission, the government’s law reform watchdog, also recommends the creation of a new offence of bribing foreign government workers.
The reforms, which are expected to be implemented in the next parliamentary session, go some way to meeting accusations that Britain has failed to properly tackle corporate bribery.
The current web of “several overlapping, but distinct, corruption offences” will in effect be replaced with two general offences of bribery — one concerned with giving bribes and one concerned with taking them.
The changes to the outdated laws, one of which dates back to Magna Carta, should also make it easier to pursue cases like the abandoned corruption inquiry into a deal between arms maker BAE Systems PLC and Saudi Arabia.
“Our recommendations will make the law fit for purpose at a time when a great deal of trade takes place in a global market,” said Commissioner Jeremy Horder. “It has never been more important for the modern law to deter people from acting on the temptation to resort to bribery to secure business, both nationally and internationally.”
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development last month harshly criticised Britain’s track record on bribery investigations, saying it was “disappointed and seriously concerned about the Britain's continued failure to address deficiencies in its laws on bribery of foreign public officials and on corporate liability for foreign bribery.”
The OECD brought forward its usual biennial review of Britain after the government halted a probe by the Serious Fraud Office into BAE’s Al-Yamamah contract with Saudi Arabia in 2006.
The Law Lords, Britain’s highest court of appeal, ruled earlier this year that the fraud office was right to drop the investigation on national security grounds. BAE Systems has always denied any wrongdoing.
The Law Commission’s reforms would create a new offense applying to companies of negligently failing to prevent bribery by an employee or agent.
The bribery laws will also be extended both to cover the operations of British companies overseas and to cover foreign nationals who live in Britain and conduct their business here.
Serious breaches of the new law will be treated the same as fraud, which can lead to a jail term of up to 10 years. - AP
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