In recent times, two parallel trends have combined to increase significantly the risk to businesses of serious damage arising from violations of anti-bribery laws and regulations around the world. The first is the inexorable globalisation of economic and business activity. This has opened up new exposures to a range of regulatory and legal risk, not least the risk of corruption. Emerging economies, into which companies from the UK and other developed countries are making substantial investments, are also countries generally recognised to represent significant challenges in terms of corruption risk. The reverse is also true, when organisations from emerging markets invest in UK business, they bring their ethics and business practices to bear in a UK legislated environment.

The second trend is the increased propensity for regulators and law enforcement agencies across the globe to investigate corrupt conduct and impose heavy sanctions on transgressors. UK Directors not only need to be aware of UK legislation, but also legislation across the globe.

Arguably, the most wide-reaching law is the UK foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). This is robustly enforced by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Any UK company with securities listed on a US exchange is subject to the jurisdiction of the FCPA. In addition, non-US listed UK companies may find themselves caught by the FCPA on other grounds.

A new UK Bribery Bill is currently making its way through parliament and is anticipated to become law in 2010. For UK registered corporates, there are three potential offences: a general offence of offering or receiving bribes; a specific offence of bribing a foreign public official; and an offence of failing to prevent bribery on the corporate’s behalf. Recent activity from the Serious Fraud Office shows convictions increasing under the existing bribery legislation, which is anticipated to continue once the new bill is enacted.

How can UK businesses achieve sustainable compliance?

Gaps or failures in your business and regulatory compliance can be hard to detect and even harder to eliminate. Left unmanaged they can severely damage your brand. Integrity in business and regulatory compliance should not be approached as a one-off exercise, but embedded in the business and ingrained in the corporate DNA. At PricewaterhouseCoopers we have built a position of trust and good standing with regulators over time. Through our knowledge of their approach and expectations we can help you to achieve sustainable compliance.

For an introduction to how we can support you with a proactive approach, reactive crisis management or remediation of an incident, please find some material below. Alternatively, you may wish to join the PwC Fraud Academy via the right hand button to find more information and access the experts.