Martin Polaine & Arvinder Sambei ran a one-day workshop for the Fraud And Corruption Team (FACT) at Oxfam on the practical implications of the UK Bribery Act (here and abroad) and an understanding of the Countering of Financing of Terrorism and its relevance to the charity sector. Martin Polaine led the session on the UK Bribery Act and its implications for the charity sector and focussed on practical guidance and steer on:
- An overview of the principal provisions of the Act and the practical challenges that may arise as a result;
- Insight into the Guidance produced by the Ministry of Justice under Section 9 of the Act;
- Practical analysis of potentially ‘difficult’ issues; in particular, hospitality and promotional expenditure/gifts and internal investigations.
Martin took the participants through the historical development of the Act, the international initiatives (UN Convention again Corruption 2003 and the OECD Convention on the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions 1997); the offences created by the Act and their relevance to the charity sector; the consequences for a commercial organisation for failing to prevent bribery; meaning of ‘associated person’; facilitation payments; hospitality & promotional expenditure and the need for organisations to put in place appropriate policies; internal investigations (practical guidance on how those should be handled); deferred prosecution agreements (DPA) and red flags/corruption risk indicators and red flags from the work of NGOS etc. The session concluded with practical case studies.
Arvinder Sambei led the session on Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT), which addressed the international (in particular, the UN Counter Terrorism Conventions and UNSCR 1373) & regional (European initiatives) frameworks on CFT and their implementation in the UK; terrorist financing: typologies & money flows; legitimate & illegitimate sources of funding; the exploitation of the charity sector by those who raise and move funds on behalf of terrorist groups; the provision of ‘material support’ and what it means; the relevant 2012 Recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in addressing CFT; the risk to the charity sector; the obligations for charities under the UK Terrorism Framework, duty on the charity sector to carry out risk assessments and conduct due diligence where activities are carried out in ‘high risk’ areas; the sanctions regimes relevant to CFT; the key provisions under UK law that are most likely to concern Oxfam (and other charities) and a practical guide on the preventive measures charities should have in place.
Links:
Oxfam UK: http://www.oxfam.org.uk
FATF Recommendations: http://www.fatf-gafi.org/publications/fatfrecommendations/documents/fatf-recommendations.html
FATF Emerging Terrorist Risks 2015: http://www.fatf-gafi.org/publications/methodsandtrends/documents/emerging-terrorist-financing-risks.html
FATF Best Practices on Combating the Abuse of Non-Profit Organisations: http://www.fatf-gafi.org/publications/fatfrecommendations/documents/bpp-combating-abuse-npo.html
