The Bribery Act Guidance 2010 - organisations should put their act together

The UK Bribery Act 2010 has been waiting for some guidance from the United Kingdom about their new law on corruption as it received Royal Assent in April. The delay on the guidelines has tardy implementation of the Law on Corruption. Now the direction is out.

The UK Bribery Act 2010 under section 7 creates a new offense that deals with commercial organisations that fail to prevent persons associated with them to bribe another person on their behalf.

An organisation that can prove it has enough procedures in place to avert people who are associated with them from bribing will have a defence to the offence under section 7.

Bribery is bad and now there is a system is in place to prevent and detect them if they occur. Nestled in section 9, the UK Bribery Act 2010 was a necessity that led the Secretary of State to draft guidance about the procedures for commercial organisations to practice and prevent persons associated with them from bribing. Under Article 9 of the UK Bribery Act 2010, the only protection against criminal liability for a commercial organisation if they have failed to prove they had adequate procedures "to prevent corruption.