One of the new offences is failure by a firm to prevent third parties (such as contractors or agents) greasing palms on its behalf.
The most important offence for our purposes is that contained in section 7 of the Act – an offence of failure by a commercial organisation to prevent a bribe being paid to obtain or retain business or a business advantage.
This is because there would have been no offence or failure for tax purposes".
The offence of failure to notify carries a maximum penalty of £5,000.
In the UK, in addition to prosecuting companies that fail to prevent bribery and tax evasion, we will consult on extending the criminal offence of "failure to prevent" to other economic crimes such as fraud and money laundering so that firms are properly held to account for criminal activity that takes place within them.
Last March, following revelations of HSBC helping clients hide money in Switzerland, George Osborne suggested a corporate offence of failure to prevent the criminal facilitation of tax evasion – designed to tackle the difficulty in holding companies liable for the acts of their employees.
Clause 14 of the proposed bill – The Offence of Failure to Report Homosexuality – states that any person in authority who fails to report known violations of the law within 24 hours will be subject to a significant fine and up to three years in prison, even when this means turning in their friends, colleagues or family members.
In addition, the disclosure must be one which the whistleblower "reasonably believes" shows a criminal offence, a failure to comply with legal obligations, a miscarriage of justice, danger to the health and safety of employees, damage to the environment, or the hiding of information which would show any of the above actions.
He is expected to propose a new offence of "corporate failure" to prevent an "economic crime".
BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said Whitehall sources had suggested that further action on tax evasion would not necessarily lead to a new offence of "corporate failure to prevent an economic crime", an idea floated by Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander at the weekend.
