Bribery Act faces delay as Government ponders its wisdom

Heave a sigh of relief – it looks as though the Bribery Act 2010 will NOT come into force in April after all.

EAT takes full credit for this delay.

In a spirit of helpfulness to agents, we had spent long days and nights bad-temperedly writing the blog to end all blogs on this monumental piece of lunatic bureaucracy.

No sooner was the ink dry on our marathon endeavours, when the Government apparently decided to call the Act in for a review. Never have we been more pleased to have wasted (we hope) our time.

Nothing is yet clear (a bit like the Bribery Act itself: for example, nowhere does it actually define bribery), so it may be too early to rejoice.

But be warned, if you don’t already know it, the Bribery Act is a thoroughly awful piece of legislation that needs resisting at every turn. Should it come in as it stands, agents will spend so much time complying with it that you can forget all about selling or letting houses.

For example, one thing it does, as it currently stands, is force all businesses to do a risk impact study – not just of its own business but every other business in its supply chain.

Each business would also have to take steps to review its whole culture, train staff, appoint bribery officers, get new contracts of employment in place, monitor the whole thing constantly and draw up new policies on whether, for example, to accept that bottle of Christmas whisky or press an extra £100 into the grateful hands of your Employee of the Month.

Unfortunately, all this schemozzle would have been necessary as ‘due diligence’ would have been your only defence had you been charged with making or taking a bribe (even though we don’t exactly know what one is).

Let us hope all this hapless absurdity will be killed off.

At any rate, rest assured that EAT will keep its ears open on your behalf and keep you informed.

We are hoping to spare you our blog of all blogs on the subject, but if we do have to dust it off, we’ll do so in good time to help you.

Meanwhile, if you feel like tackling your Conservative or LibDem MP about the sea of red tape engulfing agents, remind them of the The Coalition Government’s Better Regulation Programme. Because the powers that be have clearly forgotten all about its promises.