One of the UK’s leading bribery experts has launched an online training course to help companies ensure that they have 'adequate procedures' in place to prevent bribery and corruption.

Zia Ullah, formerly head of sanctions and anti-bribery policy at Barclays Bank and now a partner in the regulatory team at Pannone, has also recently helped the US government get to grips with the tough new UK and EU sanctions regime.

The e-learning tool is designed to help organisations from all sectors become fully compliant with the Bribery Act 2010 which comes into force on 1 July. The online anti-bribery course, which was written by Zia, is a joint venture with digital learning provider, Intellego.

The Bribery Act is widely acknowledged as one of the strongest pieces of Anti-Bribery legislation in the world. In particular, the new corporate offence of failing to prevent bribery allows for unlimited fines for those falling foul of the law.

The only defence available to an organisation is to have in place 'adequate procedures' to prevent bribery. The UK Ministry of Justice has published guidance on 'adequate procedures'. The guidance states "... training is likely to be effective in firmly establishing an Anti-Bribery culture whatever the
level of risk."

Zia says the digital course will assist companies in ensuring that they have ‘adequate procedures’ in place.

An expert on bribery, anti-money laundering and sanctions, Zia delivered a seminar, live by video-link, on the UK and EU sanctions regime to the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in Washington. More than 20 of OFAC’s team were present including the deputy director and head of compliance.

OFAC is responsible for administering US sanctions and many UK-based institutions have fallen foul of its strict regime including a number of high street banks which have been fined hundreds of millions of pounds.

Next week, Zia is speaking at the annual European ACAMS Anti-money Laundering Conference in Amsterdam where he will address hundreds of delegates on understanding sanctions against countries in the Middle East and North Africa regions.

The partnership between Intellego and Pannone will see the production and distribution of a series of digital compliance and regulatory products.

The Anti-Bribery course is a turn-key e-Learning solution, which helps clients:

• TRAIN their staff to understand the risks associated with bribery and how to spot and report it
• TEST knowledge on internal policies and procedures and provide feedback
• AUDIT all training records via an easy-to-use database and one click
  reporting

Zia, who as a partner in the Pannone Regulatory team, is currently involved in some of the UK's most high profile corruption cases brought by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), said: "This product has been designed to take a practical approach to Anti- Bribery compliance and will allow companies to demonstrate they have communicated an anti-bribery message to staff and will help embed a culture of zero-tolerance towards bribery within any organisation."

To arrange a discussion with a regulatory investigations solicitor or corporate crime solicitor click here or call us on 0800 840 4929.