Human Rights and Democracy - Official Documents

A new Bribery Act received Royal Assent on 8 April, and will create a modern,
comprehensive scheme of bribery offences to replace the present complex and
outdated legislation. This will help build on the UK's good reputation. UK companies
are not immune to the challenges of overseas corruption but have been assessed by
Transparency International's 2008 Bribe Payers' Index as less likely to pay bribes
than many of their G8 competitors. The UK is also playing a leading role in the
international fight against bribery and corruption, including work through the G20 to
help China and Russia to hold their companies to account. Despite having been
criticised in the past for weak bribery legislation, the UK has convicted a number of
companies and individuals for overseas corruption and was recently assessed by
Transparency International as one of the few active enforcers in the OECD Working
Group on Bribery. The Bribery Act is a clear signal of our commitment to ensure that
the fight against bribery and corruption supports UK companies.
We are working to tackle international corruption and improve governance through
the G20, the OECD and the UN. We support the G20 Anti-Corruption Action Plan,
adopted by all G20 leaders in 2010, to encourage the governments of emerging
market economies to criminalise and prosecute commercial bribery of foreign public
officials by companies from those countries. We also support the OECD Anti-Bribery
Convention which establishes legally binding standards to criminalise the bribery of
foreign public officials in international business transactions and provides for related
measures to make this effective. The OECD convention is the only international
anti-corruption instrument focused on the supply side of the bribery transaction.
We also provide bilateral support to governments in their efforts to manage
corruption. In 2010 this included:
x working with the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition to produce a guide to
whistleblowing in Ghana;
x working with the government of Kenya to improve financial management
to address corruption;
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