Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

England and Wales: Sentencing Council guidelines for corporate bribery offences, including BA 2010 s7, harm-based multipliers, fines, compensation, confiscation and ancillary orders

Published by a LexisNexis Corporate Crime expert

Practice notes

This Practice Note outlines the Sentencing Council’s guidance on sentencing corporate bribery offences in the Crown Court and magistrates’ court. The court must follow these guidelines when sentencing a corporate offender unless it is satisfied that doing so would be contrary to the interests of justice. The court should set a sentence within the offence range, subject to:

a reduction for a guilty plea
a discount for assistance provided
totality
where the court considers none of the categories sufficiently resemble the offender’s case

For guidance on sentencing guidelines generally, see Practice Note: Sentencing criminal offences—sentencing guidelines and resources. For information on sentencing more broadly, see Practice Notes: Sentencing procedure in the magistrates’ and Crown Courts and Sentences imposed following conviction.

Bribery committed by a corporate offender

Corporate bodies can be convicted of offences under sections 1, 2 and 6 of the Bribery Act 2010 (BA 2010), all of which are offences triable either way. Corporate offenders can also be convicted of failure to prevent bribery contrary to BA 2010, s 7, which is triable only on indictment. See Practice Note: Failure to prevent bribery—the offence. The maximum sentence for...

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Joseph Sinclair

Joseph Sinclair is a criminal, public, and regulatory law pupil barrister at Mountford Chambers and an associate researcher for an anti-corruption charity, specialising in bribery, corruption, asset recovery, sanctions, and mutual legal assistance....

Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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