Despite the COVID-19 conditions that exist around the world, activities in the commercial crime space continue along. Australia inches ever more-closer to substantial reforms to its foreign bribery and commercial crime laws, although it has been over 4 years from when they were first proposed. These will, once enacted, have a considerable impact on international supply chains and require Australian business to be robustly proactive in identifying, managing and minimising risk in order to protect themselves from potential strict criminal liability. Our Foreign Bribery Updates are now focused on the broader topic of Commercial Crime, which is now of greater importance to governments across the world. Australian businesses needs to be aware of these developments in order to protect themselves from potential criminal liability and reputational issues.
Finally, the Australian Government has initiated the long-waited for Tranche 2 reforms to its anti-money laundering regime with considerable fanfare.
After reforms to Australia’s foreign bribery regime were first proposed by the Turnbull Government in 2017, the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Combatting Foreign Bribery) Bill 2024 (Cth) (CFB Bill...
In the first case of its kind in Australia, the Federal Court of Australia held that Rio Tinto-backed Queensland Alumina Ltd was correct in interpreting and applying the sanctions imposed by the...