TI-M president Akhbar Satar said with the introduction of the corporate liability provisions, companies could be held accountable for their employees’ involvement in corruption or bribery if the companies were found to have failed to take adequate steps to prevent such corrupt acts.

“We strongly believe that the MACC (Amendment) Bill 2018 will make significant progress in private sector anti-corruption movements.

“As the law will be enforced soon, we also encourage companies to initiate and introduce comprehensive anti-corruption programmes or training in their organisations for their employees and business associates, to mitigate the risk of being held liable by MACC,” he said in a statement.

Akhbar said TI-M’s earlier released Business Integrity Country Agenda (Bica) report had also recommended to Parliament the inclusion of the corporate liability provisions in the MACC Act 2009.

The Bica report is a comprehensive research that analyses the overall business integrity environment in Malaysia based on the efforts of the public sector, private sector and civil societies.

MACC deputy chief commissioner (prevention) Shamshun Baharin Mohd Jamil previously said that under Malaysian law, individuals and not companies were liable for punishment when a corrupt act was committed.

“By enforcing corporate liability, companies will take adequate measures to ensure that corruption does not occur in their firms because they will also be liable,” he was reported as saying.