As a U.S. company, do you have UK subsidiaries, business units, offices or employees? If you do, are you or your officers and directors subject to the UK Bribery Act 2010 that comes into force July 1, 2011?

While the new anti-corruption regime in the UK has a number of parallels with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, it is in many respects tougher and more onerous for business as the offenses cover dealings in both the public and private sector, and there is no exemption for facilitation payments.

The Act creates a new criminal offense for companies of failing to prevent bribery. Importantly, the Act also creates a statutory defense to the criminal offense if the company can show it has adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery.