Malaysia’s corporate liability provision in section 17A of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009 (MACC Act) has been gazetted and will be in force on 1 June 2020. The gazette notice is found here. It is now critical for commercial organisations to have adequate procedures in place.
The corporate liability provision is modeled after section 7 of the UK Bribery Act‘s corporate offence of failure to prevent bribery. Continue reading
In a speech delivered on 10 December 2018, the Prime Minister of Malaysia announced that the corporate liability amendments to the MACC Act will be brought into force on 1 June 2020.
Further, I had earlier written about the important defence of adequate procedures. It is a defence for an organisation to show it had adequate procedures in place to prevent such associated persons from carrying out the corrupt conduct.
The Prime Minister’s Department has also now issued the Guidelines on Adequate Procedures pursuant to section 17A(5) of the MACC Act. The guidelines (in the Malay and English version) can also be download from the Governance, Integrity and Anti-Corruption Centre (GIACC) website. Continue reading
The Edge and The Malaysia Gazette reported that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission has stated that the corporate liability provision of the MACC Act will be in force in 2020. This two-year period is in line with my earlier post on the Parliamentary debate during the tabling of the Amendment Bill.
The one takeaway of this new corporate liability is this. Essentially, when a person associated with a company commits a corrupt act to obtain a business advantage, this will expose the company to committing a criminal offence. This will then have serious repercussions on the directors and management of the company.
In an earlier post, I wrote about the 6 key issues arising from the MACC Amendment Bill. The Bill introduced corporate liability for corruption offences. The Amendment Bill has now been gazetted on 4 May 2018 as the MACC Amendment Act 2018. However, this Act has not been brought into force yet.
I set out certain thoughts on how companies can already prepare for the coming into force of the corporate liability provisions under the MACC Amendment Act 2018. Continue reading
The MACC Amendment Bill 2018 has been presented in Parliament on 26 March 2018. One of the key changes is the introduction of corporate liability for corruption offences. If the Bill is passed, these provisions will come into force once the amendment Act is gazetted. [edit: Since writing this article, it has also been reproduced in theSun newspaper on 30 March 2018. The MACC Amendment Act has now been gazetted on 4 May 2018 and where I share more of my thoughts.]
The main thrust of this Bill is to introduce a new far-reaching corporate liability provision into the MACC Act. There are key changes and steps that companies, and its directors and officers have to be aware of.
