Letter to employee who offers a gift/hospitality without approval

There can be serious consequences for those employers who breach the Bribery Act 2010.  To stay on the right side of the law, ban all staff from offering any corporate gifts or hospitality without your permission and come down hard on any who do. Our letter makes your position clear.

Tougher rules 

The Bribery Act 2010 makes it a criminal offence for any employee to "offer, promise or give a bribe". Whilst you would never knowingly allow this, the danger is that a majority of corporate gifts and/or invitations of hospitality offered to third parties, i.e. business contacts, clients or customers, can easily fall into this category. But it won't just be employees who the authorities come down hard on; employers who fail to prevent bribery from occurring will also commit a crime. So this is a very serious issue.  

It will take some time until we can see how the legislation is enforced, i.e. what type of gifts/hospitality are scrutinised. In the meantime, it's vital that you put in place "adequate procedures" to prevent bribery from occurring; this will help to protect your position in the event you, or one of your employees, are accused of bribery.

If you don't have one already, put a robust anti-bribery policy in place which states that an employee must always seeks your prior written permission before offering any gift or corporate hospitality to a third party which your company does business with. Any failure to do so (or suspicion that this direction has been ignored) can be treated seriously. It goes without saying that it should be thoroughly investigated and disciplinary action brought if your permission has not been sought.

Our Letter to Employee Who Offers a Gift/Hospitality Without Approval can then be used to set out your understanding of the situation, i.e. that a disciplinary offence may have been committed and the circumstances surrounding it. It then sets a date and time for an investigatory meeting.

Note. In the event you need to send this letter, follow your disciplinary procedures in the normal way but remember that an employee does not, generally, have the right to be accompanied by a workplace companion at the investigatory meeting stage.