80
Legal Focus
OCTOBER 2013
Fraud and Bribery Act Defence
The SFO has recently brought its first charges against individuals accused of violating the Bribery Act, charging a former Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Executive Officer and Financial Controller and an Independent Financial Adviser in connection with a £23 million fraud and “offences of making and accepting a financial advantage”. To find out more, Lawyer Monthly speaks to Tom Epps, Mark Beardsworth and Charles Froud from Brown Rudnick. Please introduce yourself and your firm?
Brown Rudnick is an international law firm with offices in key financial centres in the US and Europe. We are a full service law firm providing advice across a broad range of contentious and non-contentious practice areas. Brown Rudnick's White Collar Group represents individuals and companies subject to criminal investigation and regulatory scrutiny involving allegations of white collar and corporate crime.
What are the main types of bribery cases you are involved in?
We are instructed in relation to the full range of domestic and international bribery-related issues. The London White Collar Group acts for individuals who are subject to investigation by the police and the Serious Fraud Office ('SFO') under the Bribery Act 2010 and the pre-existing corruption legislation1
. We also conduct internal
investigations for companies which have identified potential bribery and we advise senior management in relation to the merits of self- reporting in the UK. In addition, we routinely review, develop and implement corporate compliance programs in order to ensure that they satisfy the requirements of the FCPA and the Bribery Act 2010.
How effective do you think the UK Bribery act has been?
In order to measure how effective the Bribery Act has been, it is worth spending a moment considering what its objectives were. Broadly speaking, it was intended that the Act would improve the UK's track record in countering global bribery in three main areas. Firstly, it would remedy deficiencies in UK anti-corruption laws, secondly, it would encourage corporate anti-bribery compliance and, thirdly, higher levels of enforcement action would follow.
With regard to the first objective, the Act was implemented in order to remedy legislative deficiencies identified by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ('OECD') and to replace the pre-existing patchwork of common law and statutes with simple and broad offences in codified form. In large part, the Act has been successful and, as a piece of legislation, it provides an effective platform for countering bribery in and deriving from the UK.
With regard to the second objective, from the outset there has been an enormous amount of anxiety in relation to certain aspects of the Act, in particular, the offence for commercial
1The Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act 1889, the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906, the Prevention of Corruption Act 1916 and
the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. 2
Section 7, Bribery Act 2010
3
http://www.lawyer-monthly.com/news/Survey-reveals-widespread-failure-of-international-companies-to-keep-pace-with- anticorruption-legislation-and-manage-the-complexity-of-investigations
www.lawyer-monthly.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140