Thursday 23rd May 2013
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Legal & General has completed the acquisition of fund platform company Cofunds by purchasing the remaining 75% of its share capital, according to an update issued by the group today - Citi has won a new mandate to provide hedge fund administration services to NWI Management (“NWI”), a New York-based investment adviser - Singapore state investor Tamasek has bought a stake in data provider Markit. The deal, which had been speculated on for the last two weeks, is reported to be worth $500m, securing Tamasek a 10% stake - SunGard has added to its suite of algorithms in a bid to support trading in the Japanese equity market - BlackRock is set to double the amount of money it has invested in real estate after reaching a deal to buy independently managed real-estate advisory business MGPA - US asset manager Vanguard will benchmark four new Irish-domiciled exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to a range of FTSE indices - JPMorgan will end its transition management operations in the US, Europe, Middle East and Africa - Emirates Islamic Financial Brokerage (EIFB), a major Shariah-compliant broker in the UAE, has become a member of Nasdaq Dubai, the region's international exchange. EIFB will focus on opportunities for trading Shariah-compliant shares listed on Nasdaq- Moody's Investors Service confirmed the ratings of Elan Corporation, plc ("Elan") including the Ba3 Corporate Family Rating and the Ba2-PD Probability of Default Rating. This concludes the rating review for downgrade initiated on May 13, 2013. At the same time, Moody's assigned a Ba3 rating to the new senior unsecured note offering of Elan Finance plc, guaranteed by Elan. The rating outlook is stable – According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics(NBS) last Saturday, China's housing inflation accelerated to its fastest pace in April in two years, driven by a jump in prices in Beijing and Shanghai, complicating the task of policymakers trying to cool the property sector while supporting economic expansion. Average new home prices rose 4.9% last month from a year ago, after a year-on-year increase of 3.6%. The rise was the sharpest since April 2011 – S&P reiterated its negative outlook on India’s credit rating last Friday, despite a previous attempt by government officials to push for an upgrade in light of their actions to put India’s finances in order. India’s credit rating is BBB-, one notch above “junk” – JP Morgan Asset Management is to launch an investment company investing in convertible securities from a range of sectors, targeting income and the potential for long-term capital growth. Domiciled in Guernsey, the JPMorgan Global Convertibles Income Fund will be managed by the convertible bond team headed by Antony Vallee -ABS deals currently in the pipeline include: €800m Bavarian Sky German Auto Loans 1; $238m CarFinance Auto Receivables Trust 2013-1; $599.7m Edsouth Indenture No.4 Series 2013-1; and €300m Volta Electricity Receivables Securitisation – RMBS deals in hand include Firstmac Series 1E-2013 and £420.6m Kenrick No.2; $425m HLSS Servicer Advance Receivables Trust series 2013-T2 and $425m 2013-T3 – CMBS deals underway include the $510m JPMCC 2013-JWRZ and $1.47bn WFRBS 2013-C14 -

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Corporate Review

By Partners at BDO

Has the Bribery Act had an Impact?

Friday, 13 July 2012 Written by 
Has the Bribery Act had an Impact?The Bribery Act (The Act) eventually came into force on 1 July 2011, following intensive lobbying by corporate and international lawyers who felt the original draft legislation was unclear and feared it would unfairly prejudice UK companies against others operating in the international marketplace.  So, 12 months on, what has been its impact?http://www.ftseglobalmarkets.com/

The Bribery Act (The Act) eventually came into force on 1 July 2011, following intensive lobbying by corporate and international lawyers who felt the original draft legislation was unclear and feared it would unfairly prejudice UK companies against others operating in the international marketplace.  So, 12 months on, what has been its impact?

Well, there has been one prosecution so far – this was the conviction of Munir Patel, a 22 year old administration clerk at Redbridge magistrates court who received a three year prison sentence for earning £20,000 for helping UK drivers avoid penalty points.  This seemed to be quite a severe sentence, but he had allegedly repeated the offence fifty times.

However, there have been no prosecutions or even publicly announced investigations of large corporates operating overseas, which were the ones really expected to be targeted by the Act.  So, does this mean that the Act has had no impact and can safely be ignored?  BDO doesn’t think so, for the following reasons. 

  • SFO investigations into bribery take time, and there are rumours to suggest that the SFO has begun a number of investigations with a team of up to 50 staff working on corruption investigations
  • A lot of large companies have taken the opportunity to review their anti-bribery and other similar procedures and have implemented the 6 Adequate Procedures (Proportionate procedures, Top level commitment, Risk assessment, Due diligence, Communication & training and Monitoring &review)
  • Companies have tightened up their rules on corporate hospitality by defining more clearly what is allowed and what is not and setting explicit monetary limits.  Anecdotally, this may have reduced demand for corporate hospitality at major English summer events and for tickets to the London 2012 Olympics
  • A small number of companies may have decided they can no longer operate in certain countries with examples cited in Africa and India.  This is unfortunate, as it has meant less international trade for those companies.


The most challenging issue remains on facilitation payment (small payments for getting through a police checkpoint or getting your goods released by customs etc).  What are companies meant to do about these?  The Act says they are illegal, and yet the SFO says it will not prosecute isolated instances.  BDO’s recommendation is to follow SFO and Transparency International guidance -  train staff who are at the cutting edge of having to pay facilitation payments, and do everything possible to avoid paying them, but if this does not work, consider whether you are prepared to pay or not, and if you do pay, record it clearly and openly in your accounts.

To review your client’s anti-bribery processes and procedures, please click here to access BDO’s Anti-Bribery and Corruption diagnostic tool or speak to Andrew Maclay on 0207 893 3487.

Andrew Maclay

Andrew has specialised in all aspects of Forensic Accounting for the last 14 years. He has worked on a large variety of disputes involving fraud and corruption investigations, contractual claims and quantifying losses. Andrew is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, a Certified Fraud Examiner and an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. Between 1991 and 1994, he worked in Burundi, Africa and is fluent in French. He lectured at Commonwealth Secretariat conferences on corruption investigation in Abuja, Nigeria and Jaipur, India in 2007. He leads BDO UK’s anti-bribery service line and has represented BDO International at the OECD Working Group on Bribery. His main areas of expertise are anti-bribery, international arbitration and insolvency litigation.

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