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New offences to prevent corruption- four main categories
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Your employees actions are deemed your responsibility
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Your practice needs to have assessed the risk and have policy, procedures and training in place to minimise your liability - 'adequate procedures defence'
The act covers four categories
- active bribery where you are the instigator
- passive bribery where you are the receiver
- corporate offence which deals with acts relating to retaining or obtaining business for an organisation
- bribery of foreign public officials
The full document (Bribery Act 2010)
An organisation may be liable because an associated person ie employee/ partner has committed an offence under the Act. The only defence by the organisation would be to demonstrate adequacy of their organisational policy, procedures and policing of these.
Suggested actions; there is no guidance from the Ministry of Justice on standards at present. Advice would be to protect your practice by
Carry out a risk assessment of the likelihood of bribery or corruption
Develop a code of conduct and reporting procedures for staff members and decide how allegations would be investigated
These should be well publicized and included as part of staff training and included in the staff handbook
Prompt independent legal advice is recommended should any instances of corruption occur. Convictions under the Act may result in imprisonment of up to 10 years or a fine.
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