Unethical Behaviour and Criminal Acts (inc discussion draft of the TI Anti-Corruption Code, March 2005)

Neill Stansbury and Catherine Stansbury

March 2005

A paper presented to a meeting of the Society
of Construction Law in London on 14th March 2005 including a discussion draft of the Transparency International (UK)
'Anti-Corruption Code for Individuals in the Construction and Engineering
Industry' by Neill Stansbury and Catherine Stansbury, March 2005.

This paper is part of the Society's work on ethics (for further
details see the ethics section of this
website), which is outlined
in a Foreword to the paper by Peter Higgins, chairman of the SCL
ethics group. Following a brief introduction, the body of the paper
comprises a discussion draft of the TI Anti-Corruption Code. Neill
Stansbury and Catherine Stansbury explain that many people do not realise that actions which
they regard as 'part of the game' are actually criminal offences.
The purpose of the Code is to define the rules with which an individual
should comply so as to reduce the risk of breaching the criminal
law relating to bribery, deception and fraud; to give examples of
actions which could breach that law; and to provide information on
the applicable law. It is hoped that publication of the discussion
draft will prompt debate on the issues raised and inform those in
the industry about an area of law with which they are unlikely to
be familiar.

The Code comprises four sections: Section 1 'The purpose of the Anti-corruption
Code' - Section II 'Anti-Corruption Rules' - Section III 'Examples
of bribery, deception and fraud' - Section IV 'Law relating to bribery,
deception and fraud'. The 47 examples cover pre-qualification and
tender, project execution and dispute resolution. The section on
the law includes bribery, deception and fraud and related offences
such as conspiracy, attempt, aiding and abetting, and looks at the
definitions of 'dishonesty', 'deception' etc and considers liability
and defences.

The authors: Neill Stansbury and Catherine Stansbury are both solicitors with over 20 years experience in the international construction and engineering industry, and are leading an initiative which aims to eliminate
corruption on domestic and international construction projects.

Text: 53 pages (title pages, forward and introduction 6 pages, Code
47 pages).