5 Days: A little bridge over troubled waters and silver girl can set you free; but not for long...make the right choice

The United Kingdom’s (“UK”) Bribery Act 2010 (the “Act”) will come into force on 1 July 2011. It radically overhauls the UK's outdated and criticised anti-corruption laws and introduces a new, clearer regime for tackling bribery that will apply to all businesses based or operating in the UK. This article summarises the offences under the Act and the potential impact on Middle East companies operating in the UK and UK companies operating in the Middle East.

Summary of the offences
The Act sets out offences of bribing, being bribed and bribing a foreign public official (“FPO”). These offences will only be committed by an individual or commercial organisation if the relevant conduct (i) takes place within the UK or (ii) takes place outside the UK and the individual or company has a "close connection" with the UK (e.g. the individual is a British citizen or resident or the company is incorporated in the UK).
The Act also introduces a new corporate offence of failing to prevent bribery. The offence has wide reach and may catch companies incorporated outside the UK which have business operations or a subsidiary located in the UK.

Penalties include imprisonment or a fine or both. Businesses also risk being debarred from competing for public contracts in the UK.

India's Reliance in emerging financial fraud case....

A legal battle in London has revealed that a conglomerate controlled by Anil Ambani, the Indian telecoms tycoon, used a Mauritius-based fund to make covert investments in one of its own companies, triggering calls in India for a full investigation.


UK regulators have found that Mr Ambani’s Reliance Group, spanning interests from financial services to infrastructure, invested $250m in the offshore fund that in 2007 bought securities linked to one of the companies within the group, in violation of Indian law.

The complex chain of investments, long the subject of media speculation in India, is now at the centre of a disciplinary action brought by the UK’s Financial Services Authority against the former private bankers at UBS who set up the investment fund.

The long-running case has already established serious compliance failings at UBS, the Swiss bank whose flagship wealth management arm competes fiercely for the business of billionaires such as Mr Ambani. The bank paid an £8m fine in 2009 for control weaknesses on its “Asia II” private banking desk based in London, which dealt with “mega clients” such as Mr Ambani and several other Indian tycoons.

So far, only Mr Ambani’s group has been publicly identified as using this structure. But one Indian investor with knowledge of the vehicle claimed that as many as 25 Indian businessmen had used similar funds.

London Police label UK citizens in Occupy London movement as Terrorists....blimey!!!

City of London Police have sparked controversy by producing a brief in which the Occupy London movement is listed under domestic terrorism/extremism threats to City businesses. The document was given to protesters at their “Bank of Ideas” base on Sun Street – a former site of financial corporation UBS. City police have stepped up an effort to quell the movement since they occupied the building on 18 November, with the document stating: “It is likely that activists aspire to identify other locations to occupy, especially those they identify with capitalism

Next step to a solution: Iranian Oil off the world market for 90 days...

The U.S. expanded measures aimed at thwarting Iran’s nuclear program, targeting its central bank and oil industry with sanctions intended to cut the regime off from international financial transactions.



Yesterday’s actions, matched by similar steps from the U.K. and Canada, are in response to a Nov. 8 United Nations atomic agency report concluding that previous sanctions have not stopped Iran from clandestine nuclear-bomb work.


The Obama administration for the first time yesterday declared that the entire Iranian financial sector, including its central bank, is involved in money laundering. It invoked the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act to target direct and indirect financing of Iran.


Any institution or company that engages in transactions with Iran’s banking system is “at risk of supporting Iran’s illicit activities: its pursuit of nuclear weapons, its support for terrorism,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said in a press conference in Washington. “Financial institutions around the world should think hard about the risks of doing business with Iran.”


The new U.S. sanctions also target companies that provide goods or services to Iran’s oil and gas industries. Existing U.S. laws have forced most international oil companies out of Iran and the new measures aim to stop it from obtaining technology and money from smaller foreign companies.