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UK Bribery Act Penalties: Prison Terms, Unlimited Fines and What Courts Actually Impose

The UK Bribery Act penalties are set out in section 11 of the Bribery Act 2010. An individual convicted in the Crown Court of bribing, being bribed or bribing a foreign public official faces up to 10 years in prison, an unlimited fine, or both. A company convicted of any of those offences, or of failing to prevent bribery under section 7, faces an unlimited fine. Around those headline maximums sit confiscation orders, director disqualification, exclusion from public contracts and deferred prosecution agreements worth hundreds of millions of pounds. This page sets out each penalty, how the sentencing guidelines turn the maximums into real sentences, and what the decided cases show.

The four offences and their maximum penalties

Sections 1, 2 and 6 can also be tried in a magistrates' court, where an individual faces imprisonment up to the magistrates' general limit and a fine up to the statutory maximum. Section 7 can only be tried on indictment. A director or senior officer who consented to or connived in a company's section 1, 2 or 6 offence is personally guilty of it under section 14, and so faces the same 10-year maximum.

How courts set a sentence for an individual

The Sentencing Council's bribery guideline for individuals places the offence in a grid of culpability (A high, B medium, C lesser) and harm (categories 1 to 4). Its starting points run from a medium-level community order for the least serious cases up to 7 years' custody, with a range of 5 to 8 years, for high culpability and the highest harm. A middle case, medium culpability at category 2 harm, starts at 3 years with a range of 18 months to 4 years.

High culpability typically means a leading role, abuse of a position of significant power or trust, sophisticated planning or offending over a sustained period. The full 10-year maximum is reserved for cases outside the normal range.

How companies are fined

For organisations the Sentencing Council's corporate guideline works from a harm figure, which for bribery is normally the gross profit from the contract obtained, retained or sought through the bribe. For a section 7 failure to prevent, the harm figure can instead be the likely cost the company avoided by not putting adequate anti-bribery procedures in place.

The harm figure is then multiplied by culpability: high culpability starts at 300% (range 250% to 400%), medium at 200% (100% to 300%) and lesser at 100% (20% to 150%). Before that, the court orders compensation and confiscation; afterwards it adjusts for aggravating and mitigating factors, cooperation and any guilty plea. A company that won a contract with £1 million of gross profit and showed high culpability could therefore face a fine starting at £3 million before confiscation.

What the cases show

• Sweett Group plc (2016): the first company convicted of failing to prevent bribery under section 7, after a subsidiary paid bribes to win a hotel construction contract in the Middle East. It was ordered to pay £2.25 million, made up of a fine, confiscation and the Serious Fraud Office's costs.
• Rolls-Royce plc (2017): a deferred prosecution agreement covering bribery and failure to prevent bribery across seven countries. Rolls-Royce agreed to pay £497,252,645 (disgorgement of profits of £258,170,000 and a financial penalty of £239,082,645) plus interest and about £13 million of SFO costs. The agreement expired in January 2022 and the prosecution was discontinued.

The Rolls-Royce figure shows how the system works for large companies: a deferred prosecution agreement avoids a conviction, but only in exchange for disgorging profits, paying a penalty, cooperating fully and usually accepting a compliance monitor or programme.

The penalties beyond the fine

• Confiscation under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 strips the benefit of the crime, and for a company can be larger than the fine.
• Director disqualification for up to 15 years under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 after conviction of an indictable offence connected with managing a company.
• Exclusion from public contracts: bribery is a mandatory exclusion ground under the Procurement Act 2023, so a conviction can lock a supplier out of public sector work.
• Serious Crime Prevention Orders restricting how a company or individual can operate after conviction.
• Reputation and lending: most bank facilities and large customer contracts treat a bribery conviction as a default or termination event.

The defence that cuts the risk: adequate procedures

Section 7 has one defence: the company had in place adequate procedures designed to prevent people associated with it from bribing. The Ministry of Justice guidance frames these around six principles: proportionate procedures, top-level commitment, risk assessment, due diligence, communication and training, and monitoring and review. Our UK Bribery Act compliance guide walks through each, and our pages on a gifts and hospitality policy and anti-bribery versus anti-corruption cover the policies that sit underneath.

The same logic now applies to fraud: since 1 September 2025 large organisations can be prosecuted for failing to prevent fraud under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, with a reasonable procedures defence. See our page on the failure to prevent fraud offence.

Sources: Bribery Act 2010, section 11 and sections 7 and 14; Sentencing Council guidelines for bribery (individuals) and for corporate offenders (fraud, bribery and money laundering); Serious Fraud Office case pages for Rolls-Royce plc and Sweett Group plc. Checked 20 October 2026. Back to the E-Business Ethics homepage.