The Bribery Act of 2010 is a U.K. law that makes offering or receiving a bribe, bribing foreign officials, and organizations' failure to prevent a bribe being paid on an organization’s behalf a crime.

A company will be able to defend against a prosecution of the corporate offense if it can show that it has “adequate procedures” in place to prevent bribery and corruption. The guidance published by the U.K. government is designed to assist organizations in establishing adequate procedures for preventing bribery. The guidance also attempts to provide clarity about the intentions of the act in certain areas.

We provide a very high level summary of the Ministry of Justice guidance.

This document is not intended to be legal guidance, which we recommend you seek if you have questions.