The Bribery Act: one year on

The Bribery Act 2010 received Royal Assent on 8 April 2010 and finally entered into force over a year later on 1 July 2011. Tony Lewis and Alexandra Underwood of Field Fisher Waterhouse look back over the year since implementation and consider the statute’s impact on UK business and the regulatory environment.

Tony Lewis (+44 (0) 20 7861 4940, tony.lewis@ffw.com) and Alexandra Underwood (+44 (0) 20 7861 4666, alexandra.underwood@ffw.com), partners in the fraud and anti-corruption team at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP

Enforcement

The first anniversary of the Bribery Act (“the Act”) has arrived and, so far, the only prosecution under the Act has been of a court clerk, Munir Patel, for promising to influence the outcome of a trial involving a motoring offence in return for UK£500. Patel was initially charged on 4 August 2011 [1] after a sting operation involving a journalist from The Sun. Patel had been soliciting and receiving cash bribes in return for not entering details of traffic violations on the court system for some time. He had accepted no less than 53 bribes before the Act came into force and so the seriousness of his offence should not be overlooked on the basis of the one bribe for which he was prosecuted. Patel was sentenced in November 2011 to three years imprisonment for bribery and six years for misconduct, serving his sentences concurrently. [2] The sentence for misconduct was later reduced by two years.