Prof Dan Hough, director of the Sussex Centre for the Study of Corruption, says that the UK Bribery Act "has made business leaders think and quite possibly change at least some aspects of business practice".

Monty Raphael QC, from London solicitors Peters & Peters, energetically critiqued the effectiveness of the UK Bribery Act at a conference at Sussex in May 2013.

Sussex’s reputation as a thriving academic hub of anti-corruption analysis was further enhanced on Wednesday (29 May) as academics, practitioners and students met in the Jubilee Building to talk about the impact of the 2011 UK Bribery Act (UKBA).

Professor Dan Hough, director of the Sussex Centre for the Study of Corruption (SCSC), explained: “The UKBA might sound like a relatively obscure piece of legislation, but in many ways it is ground-breaking, placing Britain in the vanguard of states that are trying to stamp out bribery as a way of doing business.”

Until 2011 private bribery was not, for example, criminalised in the UK, while the Act also took on the particularly thorny issue of ‘facilitation payments’ (effectively small bribes paid to officials get things done) and corporate compliance procedures.

No company that does business in or from the UK can now blame a rogue trader for committing bribery without them knowing; all employees have to be trained and educated in what is and isn’t acceptable.

Given its potentially significant impact on the way business works, the UKBA has subsequently came in for quite a lot of scrutiny in the media, both at home and abroad.

Academics at the SCSC subsequently felt it was high time that an attempt was made to assess the impact of the Act as well as possible areas where it might need updating. And, as quickly became clear, there were indeed a significant number of those.

Roderick Macaulay from the Ministry of Justice opened proceedings by outlining that when he and his colleagues were drafting the legislation they consulted (very) widely. Yet, the more people they spoke with, the more difficult it became to find a consensus on what exactly bribery is (let alone what should be done about it). For some, it was simple. For others, and particularly those looking to do business in tougher parts of the world, it was anything other than clear.

Monty Raphael QC, from London solicitors Peters & Peters, energetically took up the challenge of critiquing the Act’s effectiveness, noting that only three convictions had been achieved (and even they were for relatively low-level offences) and that the UK government itself seems to undermine the Act by publishing guidance on how to get round it. For Mr Raphael, the Act was a noble attempt at cleaning up the business world, but is ultimately an ineffective tool in really getting to the core of the problem.

Robert Barrington, Head of Transparency International UK, was not quite as downbeat as Mr Raphael, stressing that the Act certainly is fit for purpose and is subsequently a significant improvement on the legislation that existed before. However, even Mr Barrington was less than enthusiastic about the guidance offered on getting around the Act, and he argued that, if the Act is going to work in practice, a sea-change in attitudes to doing business abroad will have to take place.

SCSC Director Professor Dan Hough stressed that we were never likely to see a raft of quick convictions. He noted: “The Act has made business leaders think and quite possibly change at least some aspects of business practice in ways that aren’t immediately quantifiable.” He added: “No one wants us to return to the pre-2011 era, and that alone says something.”

Professor Hough was very pleased with how the day went. “Sussex is now firmly on the map as a place where issues of corruption and anti-corruption are discussed seriously,” he said.

The SCSC’s briefing paper on the conference will be on the SCSC’s website by the end of June.

The SCSC is now looking forward to 9 September, when the second annual SCSC conference will take place at Clifford Chance’s offices in Canary Wharf.