Businesses unprepared for UK Bribery Act: poll

While 78 per cent of respondents who participated in a Deloitte webcast poll said they anticipated greater global anti corruption enforcement in the next year, 73 per cent said they were not familiar with provisions in the UK Bribery Act, due to come into effect on 1st July 2011, according to a report released by the global accounting firm on 20th April.

More than 1,000 business professionals from a variety of industries and countries were polled by Deloitte during a webcast on “US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Compliance in BRIC Countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China)” earlier this year.

The head of Deloitte's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) consulting services practice, Joe Zier said “When we saw these results, our eyebrows went up a bit.”

"It's surprising and a little troubling."

When asked whether they had an effective anti-bribery programme in place, less than a quarter (24 per cent) of respondents replied in the affirmative. 34 per cent indicated that their programmes could be improved upon, nineteen per cent admitted that their compliance programmes were ineffective, and 21 per cent said that they didn't know.

"Businesses have less than three months to revise their anti bribery compliance programmes and retrain their employees before the UK Bribery Act becomes enforceable on July 1," Zier said.



Deloitte's Joe Zier



"Some companies began work early to prepare for compliance. Going forward, organisations should focus on expanding their anti corruption programmes beyond FCPA to fully address the new Bribery Act 2010 provisions."

Until now, most global companies have tailored their anti bribery and anti corruption compliance programmes to the FCPA, the US anti corruption law. The UK Bribery Act differs from the FCPA in a number of ways and so will require organisations with links to Britain to adjust their procedures.

The UK act covers the public and - unlike the FCPA - the private sector, it does not make an exception for facilitation payments, and it holds companies responsible for failing to prevent bribery, rather than just for endorsing it.

Zier said that some of the more challenging aspects of the UK law will be the risk assessment and due diligence requirements for third parties.

"Companies need to be vigilant of where their potential risks lie and investigate them fully to identify new exposures," Zier said.

"Now is the time for boards, chief executives and senior management to get together and refresh their anti corruption compliance programmes to ensure that 'business as usual' today isn't a UK Bribery Act violation in July."

Sources: Deloitte, Law.com, MSN Money, TrustLaw

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