The jury is out on compliance in the first test of the Bribery Act’s adequate procedures defence

Table of contents

• Background
• The company
• The contracts
• The bribes
• The internal investigation
• COLP’s investigation
• The trial
• How will prosecutors assess the adequacy of procedures?
• Other points of interest

Article summary

Corporate Crime analysis: Skansen Interiors Limited was convicted of failing to prevent bribery following a trial at Southwark Crown Court, in the first contested case under Bribery Act 2010, s 7. The jury rejected the company’s defence that it had had adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery. Omar Qureshi, Iskandar Fernandez and Amy Wilkinson at CMS LLP consider how this case illustrates the difficulties that small companies can face when seeking to implement controls for the prevention of bribery and how prosecutors might assess the adequacy of procedures when deciding whether to prosecute.