Barbara Bolton: The Weir Group prosecution is timely

This week the Weir Group, a Glasgow-based engineering company, was fined £3 million by the High Court in Edinburgh for bribing officials in Iraq. The group pled guilty to two charges of paying kickbacks in 2001 to secure contracts for the supply of pumps in breach of UN sanctions.

The company had already been hit by a 13.9m confiscation by the Crown Office as the proceeds of criminal activity. This is the largest confiscation order ever issued in Scotland, with the Crown recovering the entire profit made by Weir through the Iraqi contracts.

This case comes as a timely reminder, as the new Bribery Act is due to come into force in April 2011. Had that act been in force, the Weir Group could have been prosecuted even if it had used its own money for these kickbacks. The Weir Group could have been prosecuted for the corporate offence of failure to prevent bribery. The penalty for this is an unlimited fine. And the individuals involved could have faced charges of bribery and/or bribing a foreign public official. The penalty for this is up to ten years in prison and a fine.

If we had thought the Scottish authorities, struggling with constraints on their resources, may not make a great deal of use of the new Bribery Act, this case shows that the Scottish authorities will prosecute corruption, and they will use their powers to confiscate the proceeds. Those proceeds will go back into the public purse and if prosecutions for corruption reap sums as sizeable as 13.9m, then they may pay for themselves.

The Weir Group prosecution also shows the Scottish authorities are working with the Serious Fraud Office in the prosecution of corruption. Where an SFO investigation has a Scottish element, the company will be prosecuted through the Scottish Courts. Unlike in England and Wales, the SFO has no jurisdiction in Scotland to agree an out of court civil penalty. Companies prosecuted in Scotland will be fined by the courts and will have to live with a bribery conviction.

• Barbara Bolton is a solicitor with solicitor with the Tods Murray Bribery Act Consultancy Service