Corporate Bribery in Mauritius: Lessons from U.K. Laws
Ambareen BeebeejaunPurpose
Corruption is a pervasive threat which is rampant in today's society, and it has gathered a lot of attention in recent years. One among the main forms of corruption is perceived to be corporate bribery, and one previous study confirms that 60% of participants believe their competitors use bribes to secure a public contract. These immoral practices have far-reaching implications that harm a country's ability to advance while weakening the political and judicial processes. The purpose of this research is therefore to critically assess the efficiency of the laws of Mauritius to prevent the offence of corporate bribery.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve this research objective, the black letter research method is used by analysing laws, regulations and case laws on the subject matter. A desk-based and doctrinal approach is also used by examining policy papers, published scholarly articles and newspaper materials on the researched topic. Additionally, the research adopts a comparative analysis by assessing how the laws of another country address the issue of bribery in the corporate world, and the selected country is the United Kingdom.
Findings
While the Mauritian Financial Crimes Commission (FCC) Act has already catered for precautionary measures in the case of a conflict of interest involving a public officer, no other provision is provided in terms of a preventive mechanism that has to be established by an entity. In this respect, it is suggested that the FCC Act be inspired by the UK Bribery Act to also incorporate the failure to prevent bribery offence. By holding organisations responsible when they fail to adduce evidence that they have established procedures to ensure that their officers are not taking or offering gratification for the entity's benefit, the instances of corporate bribery will be reduced.
Originality
This research is the first scholarly article which assesses the efficiency of Mauritian laws on bribery in organisations. To date, there is no published material on the efficiency of the Mauritian FCC Act in dealing with corporate bribery given that this legislation has recently been enacted.