A company has now been convicted in the UK for the first time for failure to prevent bribery. On 19 February 2016 Sweett Group PLC (“Sweett”), a business operating in the construction and professional services sector, was convicted and sentenced for the corporate offence under Section 7 of the UK Bribery Act 2010 (“the 2010 Read more »
Predictions for 2016
Each year in January we sit down and reflect what are likely to be the compliance challenges of the year ahead. We share this information with our clients to help them predict their likely compliance challenges and we thought it would be interesting this year to share some of our thoughts more widely. We have Read more »
UK’s first Deferred Prosecution Agreement video update
The UK Serious Fraud Office’s first Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) was today approved by Lord Justice Leveson. Read our full report here. Jonathan Armstrong and André Bywater are lawyers with Cordery in London where their focus is on compliance issues. Jonathan Armstrong, Cordery, Lexis House, 30 Farringdon Street, London, EC4A 4HH Office: +44 (0)207 075 Read more »
UK’s first Deferred Prosecution Agreement approved in Court today
The UK Serious Fraud Office’s first Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) was today approved by Lord Justice Leveson. Cordery attended what was literally a standing-room only event – just before the start the judge had to move the hearing to a larger court once it became clear that the originally assigned courtroom could not accommodate all Read more »
Episode 160: Review sites – french food, anyone?
Jonathan and Eric look at a recent French case involving the Loiseau Des Ducs restaurant in Dijon. A reviewer posted an online review saying the restaurant was: “Very over-rated, it was all show, there was very little on the plate, and the only thing that was well loaded was the bill.” His problem? The restaurant had Read more »
First UK failing to prevent bribery case?
In a very interesting recent development concerning the application of the UK Bribery Act 2010 (“the 2010 Act”), a company has self-reported itself in Scotland for failing to prevent bribery for which it has consequently been ordered to pay UK £212,800 (about USD $326,450). The case is possibly the first under a new provision in Read more »
UK Serious Fraud Office Annual Report 2014-2015 video updates
The UK’s fraud, bribery and corruption investigator and enforcer, the Serious Fraud Office, recently issued its annual report on its activities for 2014-2015. We wrote about this here and present two brief videos in both English and French. We reported last year here on the previous SFO annual report. Cordery are experienced in investigating Read more »
UK Serious Fraud Office Annual Report shows continued modest progress
David Green CB QC, The Director of the Serious Fraud Office (“the SFO”), recently published his annual report (2014-2015), which can be found here. The SFO acts as an independent governmental authority tasked with investigating and prosecuting the most serious or complex fraud and domestic and overseas corruption under the UK Bribery Act 2010. Domestic Read more »
Update on Obligation to Report on Payments to Governments
As we have reported previously, the European regulatory drive to make businesses more transparent continues unabated. In October 2014 we reported here about the introduction of the UK Reports on Payments to Governments Regulations 2014 (implementing chapter 10 of EU Accounting Directive 2013/34). These rules came into force on 1 December 2014. Industry guidance has Read more »
New SFO case is a reminder of issues of corruption in procurement
The sentencing of Graham Marchment on 11 May 2015 and the bringing to an end of the SFO’s Operation Navigator investigation is a reminder of the need to be vigilant when supervising procurement and the supply chain. Marchment was sentenced to two and a half years in prison as the fifth person to be sentenced Read more »