CLA News / CLA Hon. Life President Colin Nicholls KC publishes the fourth edition of his co-authored book “Corruption and Misuse of Public Office”
Corruption and Misuse of Public Office, Fourth Edition. Oxford University Press.
Authors: Colin Nicholls KC, Alan Bacarese, James Maton, Rachel Scott and John Hatchard
On 29 August, his 92nd birthday, the CLA’s Hon. Life President Colin Nicholls KC and his co-authors Alan Bacarese, James Maton, Rachel Scott and John Hatchard published the fourth edition of their book Corruption and Misuse of Public Office.
The first edition was published in 2006, at the end of a period when as Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, former president of the UK’s Supreme Court, comments in his Foreword, “most, including its inhabitants, considered that corruption was not a significant problem, within the United Kingdom … the major problems were seen to arise in relation to dealings with parties in other jurisdictions where corruption was endemic, often at the highest level.”
Events since then as evidenced by the UK’s sharp fall in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index have proved how wrong they were; that corruption is universal. It threatens democracy and remains one of the world’s most urgent problems — if not the most urgent — despite the measures that have been adopted since the first edition of the book nearly 20 years ago.
The book has been fully revised and updated to cover relevant case law and fast-moving developments in both the domestic and international spheres. Its wide-ranging coverage of topics includes: examination of sector specific initiatives; expanded coverage of the FCPA; civil and criminal mechanisms for recovering the proceeds of corruption; and new material on setting standards in the public and private sector. Apart from thorough UK coverage, it also covers the laws and regulations of overseas jurisdictions including China, Canada, the UAE, and Commonwealth countries such as Kenya and Nigeria. As in previous editions, the book considers the broadening scope of corruption and its intersection with questions of integrity in public life and the move towards open government.
The book enables practitioners to handle any aspect of a corruption case by providing them with detailed analysis of the international efforts to combat corruption, and the legal developments taking place in key jurisdictions and regions covered by UN, EU, OECD, the Commonwealth, and other regional anti-corruption initiatives. As Lord Phillips states in his Foreword, “The Fourth edition establishes this work as far more than a textbook for the practising lawyer. It provides a global view of the evils of the different forms of corruption, and the steps being taken by at least some countries to address these, of much wider interest, as are a series of international case studies that make fascinating reading.”
About Colin’s co-authors, three of whom have participated in Commonwealth Law Conferences: Alan Bacarese is a barrister and Director of Investigations at the World Bank; James Maton is a solicitor and co-partner in charge of the London office of the US law firm Cooley; Rachel Scott is a barrister at 3 Raymond Buildings chambers in London and a member of the Serious Fraud Office‘s A panel; John Hatchard is a barrister, professor emeritus of laws at the University of Buckingham, professor or law at the UN International Anti-Corruption Academy in Vienna and has written extensively on criminal law and good governance with particular reference to Anglophone Africa. He is also vice president of the Commonwealth Legal Education Association.
