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Rayner my parade! The importance of specialist advice.
Jemma Brimblecombe
11 January 2016
Corporate corruption: Smith & Ouzman ordered to pay £2.2m
The SFO’s four-year bribery investigation into the printing company Smith & Ouzman has concluded with the company being ordered to pay a financial penalty of £2.2 million. The company, and two of its directors, were convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 in December 2014 but complex confiscation issues meant that sentencing of the company did not take place until last week. The two directors were sentenced in February 2015.
30 November 2015
First deferred prosecution agreement approved
The first Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) was approved today by Sir Brian Leveson, the President of the Queen’s Bench Division. The agreement is with Standard Bank Plc (now known as ICBC Standard Bank Plc) and relates to the activities of a subsidiary in Tanzania. As well as being the first ever DPA, the case also breaks new ground since it is the first case in which a company has been brought before the courts for an offence under Section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010, which penalises a failure by a company to prevent corruption.
6 October 2015
Lessons learned from the first resolution under s7 of the Bribery Act
More than four years since the offence of failure to prevent bribery was introduced through s7 of the Bribery Act 2010, the UK’s first s7 resolution has taken place in Scotland. Following a self-report in June 2015, the Crown Office has agreed a civil recovery order with Brand-Rex Ltd, a company that develops cabling solutions for network infrastructure and industrial applications. The self-report related to an independent installer who had passed on to a customer the benefit of an incentive scheme which was aimed at Brand-Rex’s installers and distributors.
1 October 2015
Corporate liability extension rejected: “failure to prevent” offence confined to the Bribery Act
The government has announced that it will not proceed with the proposed extension of the corporate criminal offence of failure to prevent bribery under s7 of the Bribery Act (“the s7 offence”) to encompass a wider range of economic crime. It has also shelved its review of whether current rules on corporate criminal liability should be widened to make it easier to convict companies who commit wrongdoing.
18 September 2015
Rugby World Cup: tackling corruption
The Rugby World Cup 2015 kicks off today at a time when corruption in sport is firmly in the limelight. Following the indictment in the US in May of 14 FIFA officials and marketing executives on a range of corruption charges, the US Attorney General confirmed this week that there will be more charges in the FIFA investigation involving both individuals and entities.