The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Combatting Corporate Crime) Bill 2019 was introduced in the Senate on 2 December 2019.

If passed by Parliament, it will make amendments to the substantive Commonwealth offence for bribery of foreign public officials, introduce a new corporate offence for failure to prevent an associate (such as an employee, agent or subsidiary) from bribing a foreign public official and introduce a Commonwealth deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) scheme for specified corporate offences including foreign bribery and other financial crimes.

Track the progress of the Bill here.

The proposed corporate offence for failure to prevent foreign bribery will not apply if the body corporate can show it had adequate procedures in place designed to prevent a foreign bribery offence being committed. The Bill provides that the Attorney-General must publish guidance on the steps that a body corporate can take to prevent an associate from bribing foreign public officials.

In early 2020, the Attorney-General’s Department consulted on draft adequate procedures guidance and invited individuals and organisations to submit their feedback and submissions. A final version of the guidance will be published before the new corporate offence for foreign bribery commences.