CANBERRA: The Australian Federal Police are ramping up their investigations into Australian companies paying bribes to foreign officials, with a “good handful” of prosecutions in the pipeline and investigations into CIMIC, formerly known as Leighton Holdings, and BHP Billiton ongoing.
Commander Linda Champion, manager of the AFP’s Fraud and Anti-Corruption Centre, has warned companies which have breached the rules on foreign bribery that if they come forward they could forestall more painful investigations.
The foreign bribery crackdown is part of a broader blitz on white-collar crime, following the Fraud and Anti-Corruption Centre’s successful prosecution of National Australia Bank’s inside trader and a host of high-profile scandals which have engulfed big business, including claims of dirty money at Tabcorp, an immigration racket within Australia Post, allegations of misconduct at IOOF, bribery charges against IT executives at CBA, the Libor rate-rigging scandal and the ongoing financial planning debacle.
“You will see, over the next 12 months or so, some matters hopefully go to prosecution stage, which will send a very strong message that we are taking this [foreign bribery] crime very seriously and enforcing the legislation,” Commander Champion told The Australian Financial Review in her first major interview as head of the AFP’s white-collar crime unit.
“We want to show we are very serious about this, we want to enforce it, we do want to see some good prosecutions for those who deserve it, but at the same time we do want to reach out our hand and say that if you do come forward, we will do the best that we can to achieve the best outcome for you as a company and your shareholders,” she said.
Despite a lack of convictions for foreign bribery, the AFP’s prosecutions arising from the Securency banknote-printing scandal continue in the Victorian courts under a cloak of suppression orders and, in March, the AFP launched prosecutions against three employees of construction company Lifese amid allegations of attempting to bribe a foreign public official in Iraq.
The Senate committee on economics has launched an inquiry into allegations of Australian companies paying bribes to foreign officials and is expected to grill former executives from BHP Billiton and Leighton.
New laws are being debated in Parliament to lower the bar for prosecutions and increase penalties for foreign bribery offences, although a controversial defence for “facilitation payments”, or “tea money”, remains.
