A prison sentence of 10 years and confiscation will put businesses under the same umbrella as drug dealers if they fail to comply so it is important you understand the legal changes.

Lawyers are raising eyebrows over the Act’s broad criminal offenses that prohibit bribery with even sharper teeth than the US’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The Act mentions ‘facilitation payments’, which in the US’s anti-bribery counterpart law are legal but will no longer be in the UK.

This criminalises active bribery and also passive bribery in the private field.

Not stopping bribery, even by associated third parties can put you in the docks, and only having carried out suitable anti-bribery measures will you have a defense.

The system works to target the big boys – a small business taking small bribes won’t feel the arm of the law half as much as multi-million pound companies.

The bigger your company is the more precautions you should take. If bribery takes place the key is being able to show that you have prevention measures in place to keep you from staring up from the docks in Crown Court.

Not only will this act make bribery illegal but also punishes staff associated with the company, giving the Act global reach, and those who know but chose not to notice.

The Ministry of Justice has printed a guide explaining what companies must do company to show that the briber acted against the wishes of the company.

There are six points you will be expected to comply with:

1. Consider proportionality, so the bigger the chance there is of bribery the more you must do to prevent it.
2. The company directors must show there ‘zero-tolerance’ attitudes and policies to not only the law but staff, customers and associates. Consider appointing a bribery prevention officer if your company is high risk.
3. Regular checks should be put in place ready for July, with not only your staff but companies you deal with abroad. Read up on their local bribery laws.
4. Diligence is key, thoroughly examine people who are acting under your name or your trading partners.
5. Communicate this diligence to your employees and train them to dolikewise.
6. Finally you must check assess and re-asses all of the above regularly and be able to prove it!

In terms of corporate hospitality the Ministry of Justice Guidance has said: ‘Bona fide hospitality and promotional, or other business expenditure which seeks to improve the image of a commercial organisation, better to present products and services, or establish cordial relations, is recognised as an established and important part of doing business and it is not the intention of the Act to criminalise such behaviour.’

Each situation will be treated separately under the law, but judges will look at issues such as extravagance of the hospitality, nature and timing of the hospitality. Whether there is any concealment involved and the industry norms for hospitality.

While much of the law is common sense and you are still allowed reasonable corporate hospitality, put it this way, if you are the UK’s Sebb Blatter you may start finally feeling the pinch.

Starving? Look at your phone and imagine it’s a burger. Now imagine it’s a chocolate bar… a milkshake, a Caesar salad or even a hair cut.

This hungry dream is fast becoming a reality as more and more restaurants are allowing you to pay for small expenses on your phone.

Orange and Barclay Card joined forces on May 11 to create ‘Quick Tap’, the UK’s first contactless mobile payment service.

Orange customers can simply tap their mobile on to a contactless reader at tills in 50,000 stores with purchases under £15.

This means no one can watch for your pin number over your shoulder.

By May 27 Google had announced it was doing the same through its Android technology, first to be launched in the USA.

All this news has come shortly after Japan has started buying McDonald’s over their mobile phones last February.

If a Visa trial currently under way in Spain is a success, paying via mobile will

be the next big thing by 2013.

Japanese McDonalds’ is already reaping in the rewards. Julie Ask, an analyst with research firm Jupiter, said on her blog:

‘It gives both McDonald’s and DoCoMo the opportunity to track consumers and their eating habits.

‘Cash is more likely to be used in small transactions. Electronic payments will allow user behaviour to be tracked and used for marketing purposes.’

So what does it mean for the future? It means that technology companies will have their fingers in the bankers pies. Or even that Google will have the upper hand over Visa.

Could Facebook and Twitter jump on the band wagon?

Well I don’t know if this excites you or sends shivers down your spine but personally I hope they have a security system so fool-proof I can even use it.

With an overwhelming tendency to lose property, however large, the idea of my mobile and iPod becoming one was scary.

I lose my iPod and my phones gone too, right? So having your credit card in the same device is not something I relish.

@Contrabrand

Toyota is launching a Facebook-style social media site that allows you to ‘befriend’ your car.

The site will even notify you on your vehicles battery levels, street directions and when MOT’s are needed.

This is the brainchild of Toyota joining forces with salesforce.com , just weeks after they announced a new partnership with Microsoft to bring internet services to vehicles across the planet.

But hold your horses, the site won’t be debuted until next year along with a host of the brands first electric battery cars and pug-in hybrid cars.

They’re certainly committing to it as well throwing a hefty 442 million yen ($5.5 million) in to the Toyota Media Service, Microsoft Corp, aiming to bring Internet services to Toyota vehicles.

The company is then investing another 335 million yen ($4.1 million) and Salesforce.com will be investing 223 million yen ($2.8 million) in the online project.

Drivers will also have basic two-way conversations with their car, which will be bestowed with its own individual profile as part of the new social networking project.

They have even suggested there will be an application similar to Facebook chat.

Yes. A conversation between you and a car. Who said IT geeks didn’t have a life.

Your car will be allowed it’s own profile, to upload messy photos from THAT party and stalk the mini next door.

It will even be able to receive Tweet-like messages.

Toyota drivers will be able to invite their friends, families and whoever they feel is worthy of joining their exclusive Toyota Friend network via public social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

The service will rely on third party smartphones and other mobiles sold separately from the cars.

The network will be powered by enterprise social network Salesforce.com’s Chatter and Toyota’s telematics platform.

‘Whatever next!’ I hear you say. Akio Toyoda, Toyota President, said, ‘This represents a concrete step towards creating a more mobile society.’

‘Social networking services are transforming human interaction and modes of communication. The automobile needs to evolve in step with that transformation.’

Old Giggsy has learnt the power of social media the hard way.

Twitter’s only gone and laid a smackdown on super injunctions.

As ‘super-injunction’ goes from textbook to pub-talk, it stands defeated after many years of selfishly privileging the rich famous and as Hugh Grant tentatively put it ‘the naughty.’

Twitter can easily tout UK High Court Judges as Lawyer Mark Stephens said: ‘If you want to sue Twitter, you have to go to San Francisco. Any attempt to enforce English privacy or libel law will not be accepted in the US.’

Strengths lie in numbers as you cannot sue the 75,000 people who have exposed the footballer on Twitter.

Jemima Khan successfully fought back against false allegations of an affair between her and Jeremy Clarkson on Twitter, by using her own Twitter account.

She Tweeted, ‘@injunctionSuper This is NOT TRUE. I have no super injunction and I am friends with Jeremy’s wife who I had dinner with last night.’

Then again,  ‘I have no super injunction and I had dinner with Jeremy and his wife last night. Twitter, Stop!’

And Twitter did stop.

Here is where you and companies like ours come into play. Legally this may be the case but what would happen if advertising companies refused to use Twitter in their marketing campaigns?

I am no capital markets guru but it’s said Twitter is valued at around ten billion dollars, and Facebook at 100 billion dollars. If Twitter failed to reach its worldwide advertising target their valuations would plummet, possibly cause it’s downfall.

It is the marketing and advertising companies that power the Twitterati.

Social media is over throwing British law, not to mention it’s effect on the totalitarian state of Libya. Marketing and advertising can overthrow social media… It’s time to sit up and listen to the power of these networks.

Was Osama Bin Laden’s death not first made public by a Pakistani journalist on Twitter?

Word of mouth was always and is still the strongest form of communication. Social Media doesn’t just reach your Twitter Followers or Facebook friends. It can get retweeted and reposted and this has the effect of spreading the news exponentially.

To top this, some Twitter posts automatically slap themselves on a persons Facebook page and blogs, sending out the same message.

Think about your online content. How can you trigger your social media efforts to get tongues wiggling and fingers typing your brand across the internet?

@Vicky

http://www.contra-brand.co.uk/index.php?option=com_contact&view=contact&id=1&Itemid=10

http://www.facebook.com/ContrabrandLtd?sk=app_4949752878

February 8 2011 – Tomorrow Mr Ahmed will appear in front of a criminal court in Baghdad to face terrorism-relating the death penalty.

6,000 people have appealed to William Hague to aid his release.

Please act now and write to the Iraqi authorities to help ensure that no ‘evidence’ obtained under torture is used against him.

An Amnesty International spokesperson said: ”Ramze Shihab Ahmed alleges that he was tortured into making a ‘confession’ whilst held in secret detention. The torture included being given electric shocks to his genitals and being suffocated with a plastic bag. Security officials threatened him that if he did not ‘confess’ they would bring in members of his family and rape them in front of him.”

Rahiba al-Qassab, Ramsey’s wife, a pensioner living in Kilburn, London, said: “There have been promises that they won’t use the ‘confession’ against him in the trial but I know that they do this all the time in Iraq and I’m really, really worried for him.”

October 13 2010 – AN ILLEGALLY imprisoned man is being tortured in Iraq, as his wife is appealing to David Cameron for help.

Kilburn pensioner Rahiba al-Qassab was appealing to the government and Amnesty International to help her illegally detained husband who is suffering extreme torture at the hands of the Iraqi government.

Husband Ramze Shihab Ahmed was detained without trial under suspicion of terrorist involvement as witch hunt style accusations go around Iraq.

Mrs al-Qassab, 63-year-old retired teaching assistant, Kilburn, said: “Why do they keep a sick, old man, without clothes, without food?”

“If they think he is a terrorist, give him a trial! Our life is terrible now, my heart is broken.”

When the British Embassy visited Mr Ahmed, 68, was no longer able to walk and claimed he was tortured many times a day to give a ‘confession,’ including with electric shocks to his genitals.

Mr Ahmed was illegally detained in a secret Iraqi prison last December 7 with thousands of other illegal prisoners, when he went to visit his son.

The Iraqi government denied his imprisonment until late March when he was able to make a short call to his wife in London begging for her help from the UK authorities.

Mrs al-Qassab said: “I know that Ramze is far from being the only person unfairly imprisoned in Iraq, but because he’s British at least the UK can try to do something about them.”

Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International Middle East and north Africa director, said: “Hundreds of prisoners are reportedly sentenced to death on the basis of ‘confessions’ which they said were false and were signed under torture or other duress.”

The couple have a dual Iraqi-British citizenship and escaped to England as refugees in 1999.

Mr Ahmed was part of a failed 1992 plot to try to get rid of Saddam Hussain.

Mrs al-Qassab was briefly imprisoned but managed to escape.

They both had a quiet life in Kilburn. Mrs al-Qassab said: “I did everything with Ramze, walking to the shops, feeding the duck, we had a good life. My life is very sad now.”

Mrs al-Qassab fears the whole case is political as Mr Ahmed is a Sunni, once an army general and part of a rebellion against Saddam Hussain.

Amnesty International supporters are appealing to William Hague for more help. Amnesty asks you to write to him or email him at www.amnesty.org.uk/ramze.

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