Australia’s Expanding Foreign Bribery Laws – A new offence for failing to prevent foreign bribery

The legislation was introduced to the House of Representatives on 22 June 2023, and the Australian Parliament enacted the legislation on 29 February 2024.  

The expanded regime aims to address a long-criticised absence of a foreign bribery offence of the type found in other developed nations like the United Kingdom and the USA for failing to prevent bribery.  

So, what should Australian companies expect now that there is a corporate offence for failing to prevent bribery?  

Primarily, Australian companies need to consider what changes may be required to their internal risk and compliance programmes to ensure that they have ‘adequate procedures’ in place to prevent the commission of bribery of foreign public officials by ‘associates’ of the company.  

Below we set out what the changes mean, and most importantly what businesses operating in Australia should do over the next six months before these new laws come into operation.  

What do these changes mean? 

In our previous article we summarised the proposed changes. 

The new offence 

Importantly, under these new laws when they come into operation, Australian companies will be liable for failing to prevent foreign bribery by an associate (‘the Offence’). 

The Offence is an absolute liability provision, so a company’s or individual’s intention in undertaking the bribery offence is irrelevant. The…