What are the recent trends in investigations and enforcement in your jurisdiction?
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Based on the CPIB’s statistics released in 2020, cases involving private sector individuals continued to form the majority, or 90%, of all the new cases registered for investigation by the CPIB in 2019. Of these, 10% involved public sector employees rejecting bribes offered by private sector individuals. The proportion of public sector cases remained low, accounting for 10% of all cases registered for investigation in 2019.
One of the fairly recent introductions in enforcement is the Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPA) regime introduced in 2018 through the Criminal Justice Reform Act (CJRA). A DPA is a voluntary alternative in which a prosecutor agrees to grant amnesty in exchange for a defendant agreeing to fulfil certain requirements and specific conditions, such as, for example, implementing compliance programmes, and/or co-operating in investigations into wrongdoing by individuals. For now, there are no publicly-available prosecution guidelines on when the AGC will enter into a DPA with a corporate entity.
The introduction of DPAs in Singapore may be an indication of an increased focus on corporate entities by the Singapore government. This is since the Singapore Ministry of Law stated that the DPAs serve two main purposes – to encourage corporate reform to prevent future offending, and facilitate investigations into wrongdoing both by the company and by individuals.