Bribery Bill [HL]

This example will be hypothetical. An advantage given to an employee of the company in order to induce that employee to divulge information could amount to a bribe if the passing on of the information would amount to a breach of the expectation that the employee would act in accordance with the position of trust that he or she holds vis-à-vis their employer. It would ordinarily be the case that an employee cannot pass on information that the company would regard as confidential without breaching such an expectation. The fact that the information that he or she is not permitted to divulge is of assistance to the authorities would hardly be irrelevant for these purposes. The police might check up with an employee in relation to good or bad behaviour. It may just be in order to exclude a particular employer from investigation. They may pay money to an employee in order to get an answer to that question. That is a theoretical example of where it is possible that a policeman, by paying money, might make himself guilty of the offence in Clause 1.