UK Weighs US-Style Anti-Corruption Regime For Companies' Senior Executives

Josh O'Neill

16 January 2017

The UK is reportedly contemplating introducing a US-style anti-corruption regime for multinational companies and their senior executives by rendering them accountable for failing to prevent the economic crimes of staff and agents.

Last week, ministers unveiled a range of proposals aimed at clamping down on corporate fraud, money laundering and false accounting as part of a consultation on how to repair the public's trust in businesses while improving liability in an age where companies pay billions of dollars in fines for misconduct.

"Corporate economic crime undermines confidence in business, distorts markets, and erodes trust," the justice minister, Oliver Heald, reportedly said. "Companies must be held to account for the criminal activity that takes place within them.”

The so-called “call for evidence” runs through to 24 March 2017 and seeks views on suggestions that include implementing US-style “vicarious liability”, which makes companies guilty through the unlawful actions of their staff.

Much political debate over the last two years has been centred on broadening a section of the UK Bribery Act that criminalises a firm's failure to establish adequate compliance systems for staff and agents.