The past few years have seen a significant escalation on an international level in the fight against corruption. The impetus has come from the 1997 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Officials in International Business Transactions, which obliges its signatories, including those in the UK, to enact legislation criminalising the corruption of foreign public officials by individuals or corporations national to them.
The principles of the OECD Convention were in fact incorporated into the UK Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. The new Bill repeals and replaces that part of the 2001 statute, supersedes or tidies up other older anti-corruption law – some of which dates back to the Victorian era – and extends the scope of corruption offences beyond that required by the Convention.
