A radical — and to many, long overdue — overhaul of the UK’s bribery and corruption laws looks set to take place following a new report by the Law Commission. The existing anti-corruption regime, which is largely drawn from three statutes passed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has been heavily criticised by several parties, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and non-profit Transparency International, for having little impact in policing bribery and corruption at British companies.
Reforming Bribery, the Law Commission report published on Thursday, recommends that the current “patchwork of offenses” concerning bribery be replaced with two general offenses — one concerned with giving bribes and one concerned with taking them. In a clear echo of America’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the report also recommends a specific prohibition against bribing foreign public officials. In addition, it suggests that negligently failing to prevent bribery by an employee or agent should also be an offense.
