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Anti-bribery laws – compliance issues in Australia

Paul Latimer (Department of Business Law and Taxation, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia)

Journal of Financial Crime

ISSN: 1359-0790

Article publication date: 3 January 2017

2035

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the scope of the legal responses to bribery and particularly foreign bribery in the global context. It identifies the corrosive effect of bribery and its negative effect on the economy, before turning to Australia’s mixed response to foreign bribery.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is theoretical in nature as a review of policy, and the literature has been the main method used for analysis. Given the increasingly transnational and organised nature of foreign bribery, this paper adopts a comparative approach using Australia as the home base with some comparisons with the UK and the USA.

Findings

This paper finds that Australia’s response to foreign bribery is improving from a low base, and that this is recognised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Further improvement could be expected if there were strong government leadership and coordination of law enforcement authorities, including the police, corporate regulators and corruption authorities at the Commonwealth, state and territory levels. This paper acknowledges the work of Australia’s unfinished Senate Foreign Bribery Inquiry, which is due to report by 30 June 2017.

Practical implications

This paper revisits the debate on bribery and the response of law enforcement, highlighting the importance of effective and coordinated law enforcement. The paper will provide background for those analysing the issues with foreign bribery and the solutions for law enforcement.

Originality/value

The paper enables the reader to gain insights into the problems and causes and effects of foreign bribery. It is hoped that this paper will contribute to, and facilitate, further analysis of the most effective way to deal with bribery and the legal response.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This is a revised version of a paper presented at the 33rd International Symposium on Economic Crime at the University of Cambridge in September 2015. The Department of Business Law and Taxation is one of the organising institutions of the Symposium.

Citation

Latimer, P. (2017), "Anti-bribery laws – compliance issues in Australia", Journal of Financial Crime, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 4-16. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFC-03-2016-0015

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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