UK BRIBERY ACT: Flying a prime minister & his family to France via private jet, offering them a visit at Disneyland Paris and a stay at the George V hotel, is enough to trigger scrutiny under the UK Bribery Act (UKBA).
An FTSE 100 mining company ( Kazakhmys) has landed in hot waters with the SFO after leaked emails between the office of former Kazakh prime minister Karim Massimov and employees at Kazakhmys have been passed to the UK’s Serious Fraud Office, who is now investigating the matter.
Kazakhmys was the biggest miner of Kazakhstan’s copper, its business dependent on the continued favor of the Kazakh regime. After floating in London in 2005, it became one of the UK’s most valuable companies, worth $10bn. Kazakhmys was bound by the UKBA, which makes it a crime to offer any “advantage” to an official of a foreign state to advance business interests.
đź’ˇCompliance Tip: Hospitality, travel & entertainment expenditures can be misused to disguise corruption, & must be addressed in anti-corruption compliance programs & policies.
Encourage employees to use the “newspaper test”: Would they still feel confident in the legitimacy of their actions if these were reported on the front page of the newspapers?
News Source: FT https://www.ft.com/content/7a14a6cf-067e-4f27-b8b2-82bf00c2477e