ENGLAND & WALES Law and Practice Contributed by: Steven Kay KC, Richard Paton-Philip, Kabir Sondhi and Lucy Kinder, 9BR Chambers
one of a number of conditions, including (non- exhaustively) the following. • They were a British citizen. • They were an individual ordinarily resident in the UK. • They were a body incorporated under the law of any part of the UK. The Section 7 corporate offence of failure to pre - vent bribery is committed irrespective of whether the acts or omissions which form the offence took place in the UK or elsewhere. The jurisdic - tional link to the UK is set out in the definition of “relevant commercial organisation” (see above). 2.2 Influence-Peddling There is no specific offence of influence peddling in the law of England & Wales. However, as set out above, various other statutes maybe used to prosecute such behaviour – generally defined as the giving of an undue advantage in order that a person abuses their influence to obtain from an administration or public authority an undue advantage for another. By way of examples, such conduct may fall under any of the offences of the Bribery Act if it involves the exchange of a financial or other advantage for improper performance of a role. If such conduct involves the concealment of the receipt of an improper donation by a member of a political party, it may constitute an offence under Section 61 of the Political Parties, Elec -
gain for themselves or another or with the intent to cause loss to another: • destroy, deface, conceal, or falsify any account or any record or document made or required for any accounting purpose; or • in furnishing information for any purpose, produce or make use of any account, or any such record or document made for any accounting purpose, knowing that it is or may be misleading, false, or deceptive in a mate - rial particular. There are numerous offences under the Compa - nies Acts 1985 and 2006 relating to the proper administration and record keeping for compa - nies in the UK. It is not possible to give a full breakdown of all such offences here, but the fol - lowing are particularly pertinent. • Under Section 450 of the Companies Act 1985 it is an offence for an officer of a com - pany to destroy, mutilate or falsify a docu - ment affecting or relating to the company’s property or affairs, or to make a false entry in such a document, unless they can show that they had no intention to conceal the state of affairs of the company or to defeat the law. • Under Section 387 of the Companies Act 2006, if a company fails to comply with its duties to keep adequate accounting records, every officer in default commits an offence. 2.4 Public Officials There are no specific offences relating to the misappropriation of funds by a public official, the unlawful taking of interest by a public offi - cial, embezzlement of public funds by a public official, or favouritism by a public official. Such conduct may be prosecuted under other, more general, criminal offences. For the avoidance of doubt, embezzlement is a common law offence
tions and Referendums Act 2000. 2.3 Financial Record-Keeping
The principal offence relating to inaccurate corporate books and records is the offence of false accounting under Section 17 of the Theft Act 1968. A person commits an offence of false accounting if they dishonestly, with a view to
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