Corporate crime

There were a number of corporate crime regulatory developments in 2024 in bribery, tax and sanctions. The key developments were:

• The introduction of the long-awaited foreign bribery amendments to the Criminal Code.¹ The key amendments being a new 'failure to prevent' foreign bribery offence for corporations and the publication of associated guidance on the new 'adequate procedures' defence.²
• An increase, both in penalties for advisers and firms that promote unlawful tax schemes from $7.8 million to $780 million, and to the time limit for the ATO to bring proceedings (from four years to six years).³
• The passage of the multinational tax reporting regime, which includes requirements for some large multinationals to publish public, country-by-country reporting of tax and other financial information for a range of jurisdictions.⁴
• A referral in July 2024 to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Reference Committee into Australia's sanctions regime (which follows on from DFAT's review of the Australian autonomous sanctions regime in 2023).⁵ The report is due by 11 February 2025. In the sanctions space there have also been some recent Federal Court decisions that provide judicial interpretation of the current regime.
• NSW has proposed to join Western Australia by implementing a formal regime to debar from Government work companies that have engaged in corruption.⁶
• An increase in the federal penalty unit value from $313 to $330, which took effect on 7 November 2024.

From an enforcement perspective:

• The Government's foreign bribery case against Getax Pty Ltd (which has been charged with offences of bribery of Nauruan politicians for favourable mining deals) is currently the subject of an application by Getax to stay the proceeding. Initial confidentiality orders have been made and the hearing of the stay application is due to be heard in early 2025.⁷
• There is further clarification of sentencing principles in foreign bribery cases, with the NSW Supreme Court accepting that cooperation with authorities should lead to substantial discounts, but downplaying the significance of self-reporting.⁸
• 15 people were sentenced following a joint AFP and ATO investigation (Operation Elbrus) into the Plutus Payroll fraud.⁹ Operation Kraken (focused on encrypted communications and proceeds of crime) has also resulted in a number of arrests¹⁰, and the new Operation Firestorm (an international operation) is targeting scammers.¹¹