back to article Government put brakes on Bribery Act

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 …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    IT angle?

    Anyone care to explain the IT angle?

    1. Paratrooping Parrot
      Paris Hilton

      Plenty

      Anyone who does business with IT has to be up to date with business laws. As many dodgy deals are being done with IT sales, this does have an IT angle!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Go

      Keep your head up

      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.

    3. Elmer Phud

      presumably

      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!"

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Guidelines

    Guideline number 1. Don't engage in any activity which could be construed as bribery.

    There are no more guidelines.

    Nice how they provide guidelines explaining an objectively simple concept as bribery, yet fail to more tightly define something more subjective like "obscenity".

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not sure of the point in this...

    ... 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.

  4. JaitcH
    WTF?

    This could be interpreted as a re-write of BAE, EADS & BA's business practices

    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'.

  5. Loki 1
    Joke

    So...

    Is this law in favour or against bribery? I mean, it says its in favour of business and politicians are drafting it, so excuse me it its not entirely clear for me.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Despair.com already says everything that there is to be said here

    http://www.despair.com/corruption.html

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Hey, its bribery we're talking about here...

      Nobody mentioned anything about corruption ;)

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nobody lobbied for it?

    The Digital Economy Act showed that a law didn't need to be polished, adequate, comprehensive and understood before it is voted through.

    But then, I don't think any corporation lobbied for a bribery law with rough edges to be enforced asap.

  8. Andy 18
    FAIL

    Policies and procedures

    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).

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Badgers

    Bribery

    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!

  10. kain preacher

    But

    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.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Cynic in me wonders

    ... who paid them off.

  12. Glenn Charles
    Flame

    wow

    So that's why I went to jail anyway and then they complained about me trying to bribe them.

    --The IT angle is the irony, friend.

    --Glenn

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