Neill Stansbury and Catherine Stansbury
March 2005
A paper presented to a meeting of the Society of Construction Law in London on 14th March 2005 including a discussion draft of the Transparency International (UK) 'Anti-Corruption Code for Individuals in the Construction and Engineering Industry' by Neill Stansbury and Catherine Stansbury, March 2005.
This paper is part of the Society's work on ethics (for further details see the ethics section of this website), which is outlined in a Foreword to the paper by Peter Higgins, chairman of the SCL ethics group. Following a brief introduction, the body of the paper comprises a discussion draft of the TI Anti-Corruption Code. Neill Stansbury and Catherine Stansbury explain that many people do not realise that actions which they regard as 'part of the game' are actually criminal offences. The purpose of the Code is to define the rules with which an individual should comply so as to reduce the risk of breaching the criminal law relating to bribery, deception and fraud; to give examples of actions which could breach that law; and to provide information on the applicable law. It is hoped that publication of the discussion draft will prompt debate on the issues raised and inform those in the industry about an area of law with which they are unlikely to be familiar.
The Code comprises four sections: Section 1 'The purpose of the Anti-corruption Code' - Section II 'Anti-Corruption Rules' - Section III 'Examples of bribery, deception and fraud' - Section IV 'Law relating to bribery, deception and fraud'. The 47 examples cover pre-qualification and tender, project execution and dispute resolution. The section on the law includes bribery, deception and fraud and related offences such as conspiracy, attempt, aiding and abetting, and looks at the definitions of 'dishonesty', 'deception' etc and considers liability and defences.
The authors: Neill Stansbury and Catherine Stansbury are both solicitors with over 20 years experience in the international construction and engineering industry, and are leading an initiative which aims to eliminate corruption on domestic and international construction projects.
Text: 53 pages (title pages, forward and introduction 6 pages, Code 47 pages).