International law firm Eversheds is hoping to spare company directors jail time with the launch of an online interactive training facility to help businesses get up to speed with the Bribery Act 2010.
According to Eversheds, the Bribery Act “will make the UK’s anti-bribery regime one of the strictest in the world”.
It creates four new criminal offences, including corporate liability for an organisation that fails to prevent an employee, agent, intermediary, subsidiary, joint venture partner or other third party committing bribery on its behalf. Companies could face unlimited fines and directors and employees could face jail where the new legislation is breached.
But companies can plead a defence to the failure to prevent charge if they can show they had “adequate procedures” in place to minimise the risk of bribery. Part of this involves training.
Aimed at employees from all levels within a company, including managers and directors, Eversheds’ anti-bribery@work course conveys the importance of conducting business in a non-corrupt way. According to Eversheds, the Bribery Act “will make the UK’s anti-bribery regime one of the strictest in the world”.
Eversheds says the anti-bribery@work course will also:
• communicate your anti-bribery and related policies
• provide an effective and easy to understand method of integrating anti-bribery culture into business practices
• educate those most likely to be caught up in bribery or corruption issues about how to deal with such issues
• communicate the consequences of breaching anti-bribery legislation
• explain to your employees how they can report any breaches of anti-bribery legislation
• test your employees’ understanding of anti-bribery issues
• provide a reliable system to audit which of your employees have completed the training and test.
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