Written by Andrew Briggs and Lisa Navarro
As the foreword to the Ministry of Justice’s (“MoJ”) recently released guidance on the Bribery Act 2010 (the “Act”) reminds us, one of the Government’s aims in pushing forward with this legislation is to create “a level playing field” with regards to the eradication of bribery. The Government recognised that by taking a more stringent approach to certain issues, such as facilitation payments, than other regimes (e.g. the US’ Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or “FCPA”), it ran the risk of placing UK companies at a competitive disadvantage when operating in foreign countries. To minimise those risks, it became important to ensure that the Act had as broad a jurisdictional scope as possible. In the run up to the publication of the MoJ’s guidance, however, there was some heavyweight lobbying in favour of restricting, or at least clarifying, the jurisdictional provisions. This Alert considers, therefore, to what degree do foreign companies need to pay heed to the Act.
Continue Reading Bribery Act 2010: Jurisdictional scope