The Federal Government has introduced tough new laws targeting dodgy accounting practices in a bid to tackle bribery and corporate corruption.
Justice Minister Michael Keenan said the legislation would put all Australian businesses on notice.
"The Government is committed to ensuring that Australia has tough laws against white-collar crime," Mr Keenan said.
The proposed Commonwealth false accounting laws were introduced to Parliament in November as part of the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2015.
The legislation is currently before a Senate committee which is due to report to Parliament by early February, 2016.
If adopted, the laws will see a tougher regulatory regime coming into effect for the Commonwealth to pursue false accounting offenders.
The laws will make it an offence when a person "facilitates, conceals or disguises" in accounting documents payments or benefits which are not "legitimately due".
This approach aims to expose all kinds of illegitimate payments, including bribes.
Strong penalties to deter white-collar crimes
The offences will carry heavy maximum penalties for individuals of 10 years' imprisonment and fines of up to $1.8 million.
For corporations, the new offences attract significant maximum penalty options: a fine of $18 million, three times the value of the benefit gained from the crime, or 10 per cent of a business's annual turnover.
The offences will apply both within Australia and overseas, and follow criticism of Australia's foreign bribery laws by the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention's Phase Three report.
"These new offences will assist Australia in meeting its obligations under the Anti-Bribery Convention, and sends a strong message that this Government will not tolerate bribery and corruption in any of its forms," Mr Keenan said.
The co-chair of the Anti-Corruption Committee of the International Bar Association, Robert Wyld, said the reforms were significant.
"The new laws, if adopted, will ensure if you keep dodgy books to hide bribes or illegal payments... you may go to jail," Mr Wyld said.
Until now, the penalties for false accounting under the Corporations Act have been "woeful", Mr Wyld said, making it easier for companies to pay bribes or hide illegal payments.
Those who offend rarely, if ever, go to jail.
"The alleged offences at the heart of the RBA/Securency banknote printing case might have been very different if Australia had tougher foreign bribery and false accounting laws as they operate in the United States," Mr Wyld said.
The Securency banknote printing investigation and its ongoing prosecutions is Australia's most scandalous foreign bribery case.
Companies owned by the Reserve Bank of Australia — Securency and Note Printing Australia — are alleged to have paid millions of dollars in bribes to third parties in foreign countries, including an arms dealer, to win banknote printing contracts.
So far in the ongoing case, the only person convicted is David John Ellery, the former chief financial officer of Securency.
He received a two-year suspended sentence after he pleaded guilty to a charge of false accounting under the Victorian Crimes Act in relation to a $79,502 payment to an allegedly corrupt arms dealer from Malaysia who acted as the Securency or Note Printing Australia intermediary.
Under the proposed legislation, David Ellery "might well be in prison with a substantial fine", Mr Wyld said.
"If executives see prison as a real risk, as they do in the United States, these issues will begin to be taken very seriously in the boardroom, even more seriously than they are now," he said.
Organisations put on notice
Mr Wyld warned that the proposed legislation was broad and would force all Australian companies to implement stricter accounting protocols.
"The provisions may apply in a very wide range of circumstances," Mr Wyld said.
The executive director of Transparency International Australia, Mike Ahrens, said the new laws were "necessary as a deterrent to bribery".
"No longer will the overzealous marketing people be able to tell the administrative people just to turn a blind eye to illegitimate payments," he said.
Mr Ahrens said Transparency International commended the new laws "as a most important and long awaited reform of the Criminal Code".
Griffith University Professor of Public Policy and Law AJ Brown welcomed the proposed laws but said the measures were "far from a cure-all".
"Plenty more needs to be done," Professor Brown said.
The lack of a clear Commonwealth Government anti-corruption plan, he said, remained an overarching concern.
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