IT angle?
Anyone care to explain the IT angle?
The Government has delayed the implementation of the Bribery Act. It will not now come into force in April as planned, but will be put on hold while the Government rewrites guidance for businesses on how to comply with the 2010 law. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has not said when new guidance will be published but has said …
The angle is that you will soon receive an official request to acknowledge that you have read the corporate guidelines on how not to bribe public officials. If someone subsequently suggests that your improperly took a government purchasing agent to lunch, acknowledging these guidelines will have made you personally criminally responsible. Your employers will then wring their hands, say they have no idea how it could have happened, and take no responsibility.
I'd be interested in knowing how that's different from how it already is though.
I assume they will be trying to work out what constitues 'bribery' while communicating via text, email, mobe etc.
"Got a deal coming up?
Not sure if you'll get the contract?
Concerned that your rival will drop the client a bung?
No more hassles with our handy calculator that gives up to the minute scales of consultantcy renumeration fees.
There's an App for that!"
... as the places where bribes tend to occurr, it is usually the local custom I.e. no bribe, say bye bye to the customer. Is the government now saying we shouldn't deal with countries that can't be bribed? That's gonna kill our defence exports then. I don't think BAE could exist without bribes.
With all the dirty money sloshing around in the aircraft manufacturing and operating businesses some companies are going to really change their operating practices.
The U.S. has a similar law but it seems to have little effect on bribery, in fact the U.S. government has become quite a dab hand at 'persuasion' by either denying Most Favoured Nation status, offering quid pro quo deals or other 'incentives'.
So I send my new employees an email with a link to a folder containing 20,000 pages of policy documents, which no-one actually reads, one of which has a list of crimes I shouldn't commit. By doing that, any offences committed are the fault of the employees and not the business (as per the landmark Tesco case).
I don't particularly want to work for my employer, but they pay me money so that I do.
Is that bribery? What's the difference?
In a previous company, all meals and drinks were free to all. Certain visitors were not allowed to drink or eat, because the free supply could be seen as "bribery", so they had to work all day with nothing or bring their own!
The US version has no such get out of jail free option.
"Is this law in favour or against bribery"
Both. At first I thought it was a badly drafted stupid law , but then it occurred to me . Big corp gets caught and points to their policy and gets off. Little guy does the same and gets nailed . Some has plans on how to use this law.