Corruption
It is a serious criminal offence for employee to receive or give any gift, loan, deed, reward or advantage in doing or not doing anything or showing favour or disfavour to any person in their official capacity.
The Bribery Act (2010), effectively repeals all previous statutory provisions in relation to bribery and instead replaces them with the following offences:
- The crime of bribery
- The crime of being bribed
- The bribery of a foreign public official
- The failure of a commercial organisation to prevent bribery on its behalf.
A person will commit the crime of bribery when a person offers, gives or promises to give a ‘financial or other advantage’ to another individual in exchange for “improperly” performing a “relevant function or activity”’. The offence of being bribed is defined as requesting, accepting or agreeing to accept such an advantage, in exchange for improperly performing such a function or activity.
Further guidance is provided in Section 4 – ‘Conflicts of Interest and Personal Interest’.