A former Coca-Cola Enterprises manager has admitted taking more than £1.5m in bribes in exchange for helping favoured companies win lucrative contracts.
Noel Corry, who created the corrupt procurement, has been forced to sell his family home and repay Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd £1.7m when his nine-year scam was discovered. He took bribes in exchange for helping preferred companies win lucrative contracts.
This should set off alarm bells for recruitment firms and anyone involved in deciding their umbrella preferred supplier lists because significant financial incentives are often involved.
Not only has the procurement person been caught and dealt with, so have the companies involved in giving the bribes:
- One company was fined £500k
- Two companies were fined £70k each
The fines were due because the companies had failing to prevent bribery.
The CPS said “The contracting companies should have had in place compliance measures which would have prevented the payments.”
This is the first time that the Metropolitan Police has charged and convicted a company for failing to prevent bribery, inevitably more cases will surely follow.
There are obvious similarities between the Bribery Act legislation for “failing to prevent bribery” and the Criminal Finances Act legislation for “failing to prevent tax evasion”. Earlier this year, we spoke to HMRC’s lead with responsibility for implementing the Criminal Finances Act, and implications for the recruitment sector. You can listen here.
