Helen Grant, prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate for Maidstone and the Weald, opens the new reception facilities at Gullands solicitors in Mill Street, Maidstone, with managing partner Richard Cripps, right, and chairman Blair Gulland.

In April the government confirmed that the Bribery Act will come into full force from July 1, and published further guidance to help businesses understand how the Act will affect them.

The Act has generated much discussion and many myths have arisen around it, the most preposterous being that corporate entertaining will be disallowed. The good news is that corporate entertaining, and many businesses, are largely unaffected by the legislation.

As a refresher, the Bribery Act:

* Replaces old and fragmented legislation to provide a modern and consolidated Bribery law

* Creates offences of offering or receiving bribes either in the UK or abroad, in the private or public sectors

* Creates a discrete offence of bribing a foreign official in order to obtain or retain business

* Creates an offence for commercial organisations failing to prevent bribery, but offers a defence for them to show that they have "adequate procedures" in place

* Penalties range from fines to terms of imprisonment.

Hospitality

It is likely that the threshold required before the SFO prosecute as a result of providing hospitality will be a high one. Taking clients to sporting fixtures or cultural events is unlikely to be an offence, unless the hospitality is intended to bring about improper performance. However timing should be considered; for example, lavish hospitality to an organisation or its members prior to the commencement of a tendering process is quite likely to be caught.

In relation to foreign public officials (FPO) this is more problematic; simply paying for legitimate expenses incurred by the FPO when promoting products or services to them would be allowed. A test when looking at for providing hospitality to an FPO is whether it might in itself be intended to influence his or her decision in, say, awarding business under a tendering process. Is the hospitality commensurate with the reasonable and proportionate norms for the particular industry?

Facilitation payments

The government recognises that in certain parts of the world and in certain industry sectors facilitation payments are known to be prevalent. Facilitation payments are defined as 'unofficial payments made to public officials in order to secure or expedite the performance of a routine or necessary action'.

Factors tending in favour of prosecution for facilitation payments include large or repeated payments, and payments that are planned for and are accepted as a standard way of conducting business.

Factors tending against prosecution include small and isolated payments to do something routine, such as stamping a passport. It is important that organisations have a clear and appropriate policy setting out procedures an individual should follow if facilitation payments are requested and are able to demonstrate that they have been followed.

So what should businesses do?

Following widespread concern and confusion the government decided to delay implementation of the Act and published guidance designed to explain how business will be affected by and what they should do to comply with the new legislation. The guidance is based on six principles:

* Proportionate procedures

* Top-level commitment

* Risk assessment

* Due diligence

* Communication and training

* Monitoring and review.

These principles are said not to be prescriptive, but are intended to be flexible and outcome focused. Bribery prevention procedures should be proportionate to risk, and will vary depending upon the size of the organisation and sector of industry in which they operate.

This law must be taken seriously but small or medium sized businesses which face minimal bribery risk will require relatively minimal procedures to mitigate those risks. The starting point is to carry out a risk assessment and to then put in place appropriate procedures and practices within the organisation.

David Brown is a partner and head of the construction department at Gullands Solicitors. He can be reached by email: d.brown@gullands.com. Visit www.gullands.com for more information.