Corruption – the rising risk

The successful judicial review of the Serious Fraud Office’s decision to end its investigation into allegations of bribery against BAE is just one of a series of events that is likely to lead to a rise in anti-corruption investigations and proceedings warn Arun Srivastava, Oliver Kerridge and Jerome Tomas of Baker & McKenzie. Indeed, the Financial Services Authority is already examining potentially corrupt practices by UK financial institutions as part of its effort to reduce the occurrence of financial crime in the Square Mile.

Timon Molloy

US sheriffs range far and wide

The UK Government’s failure properly to enforce laws prohibiting the bribery of foreign officials has been identified as a weakness for some time. In its evaluation of the UK’s implementation of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Anti-Bribery Convention in 2005, the OECD registered its surprise that no prosecutions had been brought in the UK in the six years since ratification of the Convention in 1999. This can be contrasted with the position in the United States where the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) have been active in policing the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), usually with the imposition of significant fines and onerous remedial action, such as the requirement to appoint compliance monitors. The OECD Convention makes it clear that decisions on whether to bring a prosecution should not be influenced by considerations of national economic interest, the potential effects on relations with other States or the identity of the parties involved. Of course, in the BAE case, national security interests were said to have arisen.