From Policy to Practice: Developing Robust Anti-Bribery Defence Measures against Australia’s Foreign Bribery Offences

Our team earlier this year published an article on the new offence of failing to prevent foreign bribery and the corporate defence to the offence if a company can show it had ‘adequate procedures’ in place to prevent the commission of foreign bribery by its associates.

The Department of Attorney-General (DAG) has recently published final guidance on what steps corporations can to ensure it has ‘adequate procedures’ in place. The guidance notes that what constitutes “adequate procedures” will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Effective compliance program

The DAG sets out the following six key principles that companies should be mindful of when developing and implementing effective anti-bribery compliance programs.

1. Fostering a control environment to prevent foreign bribery

The DAG emphasises that the controls a company implements to prevent foreign bribery should be proportionate…