Financial Transparency Coalition

The Guidance to the new anti-bribery law was released this morning. Heather Lowe, Legal Counsel and Director of Government Affairs at Global Financial Integrity, released the following statement about the Guidance earlier today:

"The UK Government has taken an iron-clad piece of legislation that, if applied as written, would have put UK and U.S. companies on a level playing field when it comes to preventing bribery and corruption and turned it into rubber. The Guidance to the Bribery Act published by the UK Ministry of Justice today molded the previously strong standards of corporate liability set out...

It’s an interesting moment of flux for Task Force issues, especially if you’re sitting in London. On the one hand, you can see a key piece of UK legislation on financial integrity at serious risk; on the other hand, you can see the potential for a powerful step forward at the European level. Both are still in the balance, so if you’ve got any political pull at all – now’s the time to choose. The nature of both discussions points to a broader point, however, which is this: national- or regional-level responses to financial integrity issues will always risk a...

LONDON – The coalition government’s decision to delay the implementation of the landmark Bribery Act for the second time casts serious doubt on its commitment to combatting corruption, said Global Witness, Tearfund, CAFOD and Christian Aid today. Passed with an all-party consensus in April 2010, the Act was supposed to be implemented last October, but was first shifted to April and is now delayed indefinitely.