HR and the Bribery Act

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Overview

The Bribery Act prohibits a number of offences, including paying bribes, receiving bribes and, controversially, failure of commercial organisations to prevent bribery. This last offence is likely to have a real impact on you, as it relates to internal governance – a company convicted of failing to prevent bribery could receive an unlimited fine. To avoid strict corporate liability, organisations need to demonstrate that they have ‘adequate procedures’ in place designed to prevent the bribery in their organisation.

Here are some practical suggestions on how you, as an HR professional, can approach compliance issues with a view to protecting your organisation:

• Implementing a whistleblowing policy is a good place to start. This provides staff with a channel to communicate any wrongdoing and gives them the confidence to report any individual within the business. Consider supporting such a policy with anti-victimisation provisions to further protect the whistleblower.
• Add bribery and corruption to any list of specified offences within internal policies – this will demonstrate that you take this issue very seriously and have made provision to facilitate reporting.
• Update your employment contracts. Consider including a contractual requirement for employees to report bribes or an unlawful activity in regards to other staff members, contractors and themselves.
• Think about how employees are remunerated. For example, if employees can receive large bonuses or commission for closing a specific deal, they might be more inclined to take a bribe to receive a double reward.
• Ensure that your disciplinary procedure captures bribery and corruption effectively. Adding bribery into the gross misconduct section of HR policies will highlight that people will face severe consequences if they are found to have committed any offences, and that reasonable procedures are in place.
• Train staff about the new law. This will help to reduce the risk of prosecution under the Act. Simply informing people about the new legislation, and highlighting key areas, such as personal liability and the possibility of imprisonment, can act as a significant disincentive.

At all stages, you should be assisting management to ensure that they have adequate procedures that prevent staff committing an offence. And in the event that an offence is committed, your internal policies and strategies should show that the organisation has done all that could reasonably be required to relieve the business from liability.