now that the bribery act has basically made the giving and receiving of gifts and entertainment something you can get fined or go to jail for have we seen the end of corporate entertainment at sporting events and football in particular ?...the report of empty corporate seats at the world cup might have more to do with the effect of the bribery act on uk firms (& the city in particular) and less to do with the supposed cost which has not put firms off in the past...clubs might want to start thinking how they can repackage their corporate facilities for the ordinary fan...
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Beautiful country but is it as safe as Europe?
thanks, having looked at the one post you've started, i'll take that as a compliment...
Beautiful country but is it as safe as Europe?[/quote]
the newspaper scaremongering doesn't seem to have stopped a lot of other fans from going down there and corporate fans tend to get flown in for these matches, looked after and flown out...been there, done that...anybody know how many corporate 'fans' charlton gets at home matches ?
haha custard pie
Must have been some suite for him and a team of guys to take 12 days to get it ready so Canon are doing OK.
Personally, I'm a hater of corporate hospitality, it's done for a very good reason and I've seen a lot of dubious decisions made by people who might not have received a bribe, but they have been flown around and wined and dined at a cost of thousands. That said, I think this act only makes that illegal when someone can prove a correlation and that's something that's almost impossible to do. Personally, I think the onus should be on companies to make sure that people making decisions with the company's/government's money don't have their snouts in the trough.
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I thought it would be helpful to provide further clarification about the treatment of corporate hospitality under the Bill following the debate on clause 6 in Grand Committee on 7 January (Hansard, GC 39-44).
You asked what line would be drawn in respect of corporate hospitality and whether we would be prepared to consider a specific defence for reasonable hospitality.
We recognise that corporate hospitality is an accepted part of modern business practice and the Government is not seeking to penalise expenditure on corporate hospitality for legitimate commercial purposes. But lavish corporate hospitality can also be used as a bribe to secure advantages and the offences in the Bill must therefore be capable of penalising those who use it for such purposes.
The general bribery offences (clauses 1 and 2)
As you know, the general bribery offences are based on an improper performance test. Corporate hospitality would therefore trigger the offence only where it was proved that the person offering the hospitality intended the recipient to be influenced to act improperly. Obviously lavish or extraordinary hospitality may lead a jury to reach such a conclusion but, as the Director of the Serious Fraud Office told the Joint Committee, “most routine and inexpensive hospitality would be unlikely to lead to a reasonable expectation of improper conduct”.
The bribery of a foreign public official offence (clause 6)
This offence is formulated differently. It requires that the person offering the advantage must intend to influence the foreign public official in the performance of their functions and that the applicable written law neither permits nor requires the foreign public official to be influenced by the offer, promise or gift. (The bribe must also be intended to obtain or retain business or a business advantage). If there is no applicable written law which allows for hospitality in these circumstances, the offence may be committed.
The Joint Committee which scrutinised the Bill considered suggestions to add “corrupt” or a similar adverb to the offence specifically to exclude legitimate commercial conduct but concluded (at paragraph 147) that any concerns about criminalising reasonable corporate hospitality would be addressed by prosecutorial discretion. The term “acting corruptly” is one found in the existing 1889 and 1906 Acts but the Law Commission concluded in its review that the lack of clarity surrounding the concept weakened the effective application of the law. The Bill therefore avoids any reliance on the term.
We share the Joint Committee’s conclusion that, for the purposes of the clause 6 offence, it is sufficient to rely on prosecutors to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate corporate hospitality and to decide whether or not it would be in the public interest to bring a prosecution.
I am copying this letter to all those who spoke in the debate on 7 January, namely Lord Lyell of Markyate, Lord Goodhart, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Lord Thomas of Gresford, Lord Williamson of Horton, Baroness Whitaker, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, the Earl of Onslow, Lord Borrie and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. I am also placing a copy in the library of the House and on the Bribery Bill page of the Ministry of Justice website.
LORD TUNCLIFFE
Yea true also you think it costs allot from Englands fans point of view yea it does but if you live in some Favella in South America its even further away for you. I am not sure its a safety issue (although i know SA is unstable) i think its more a case is the S.American fans who flood the stadiums when the WC is hosted over there cant afford to travel round the world just to watch football. In Asia it was just Neutral Asian fans filling the groounds becuase we all know how much they enjoy ntheir WC football especially since S.Korea came 4th that year.
I had two seperate golf days last week, both paid for by providers I use, one was at The Tandridge golf club and the other at The Nevil in T/wells.
Whilst playing them I was offered seats at the Oval for a T20 game and also for One dayers at Kent.