A proposal made by the Chief Justice in his State Capture report is that companies should be criminally charged for failing to stop corruption. That proposal is no longer a proposal: it is law, and it has changed what South African businesses must do about corruption in their own supply chains.

From Zondo’s recommendation to a live offence

Chief Justice Zondo recommended amendments to the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act 12 of 2004 (PRECCA) that would require businesses to prevent corruption in the first instance, holding companies criminally liable should they fail to do so.

Those amendments have been enacted. The Judicial Matters Amendment Act 15 of 2023 came into operation on 3 April 2024, inserting a new section 34A into PRECCA. Section 34A makes a member of a private sector entity or an incorporated state-owned entity guilty of an offence where a person associated with that entity commits a corruption offence in order to obtain or retain business, or a business advantage, for the entity.

It is a strict liability offence. The prosecution does not have to prove that the company participated in the corruption, or even knew about it. It is enough that the corruption occurred for the company’s benefit or on its behalf. The offence is closely modelled on the “failure to prevent bribery” offence in section 7 of the United Kingdom’s Bribery Act 2010.

The duty to report under section 34: what it actually says

Section 34A sits alongside the older reporting duty in section 34 of PRECCA, and section 34 is widely misdescribed. Two points are worth getting right.

First, the duty does not rest on every employee. Section 34(1) applies to “any person who holds a position of authority” who knows, or ought reasonably to have known or suspected, that another person has committed a listed offence. That person must report the knowledge or suspicion to a police official.

Second, the R100 000 figure is not a general threshold for reporting corruption. It attaches only to the offences listed in section 34(1)(b): theft, fraud, extortion, forgery and uttering a forged document, which must involve an amount of R100 000 or more (not merely exceed it). For the corruption offences themselves, those under Parts 1 to 4 of the Act and sections 20 and 21, section 34(1)(a) sets no monetary threshold at all. A suspected act of corruption is reportable regardless of the amount involved. Treating R100 000 as a floor below which nothing need be reported is a compliance error, and failing to report is itself an offence under section 34(2).

The section 34A regime also reaches third-party contractors, recognising the role they can play in facilitating corrupt activities through layers of bureaucracy.

The “adequate procedures” defence

Section 34A gives the company a defence: no offence is committed if the member had in place adequate procedures designed to prevent associated persons from engaging in corrupt activities. This begs the question: what amounts to ‘adequate procedures’ according to PRECCA?

As at September 2026, the South African government has still not published guidance or regulations defining “adequate procedures” under section 34A, and no court has yet interpreted the phrase. Because section 34A is drawn from the UK Bribery Act, the most authoritative framework available is the guidance the UK Ministry of Justice issued under section 9 of the Bribery Act 2010, which sets out six principles for procedures to prevent bribery. South African commentators, including Bowmans, have pointed to these six principles as the sensible starting point for local compliance programmes.

These are the six principles:

  • Principle 1: Proportionate procedures – Companies should have clear procedures to prevent bribery. The procedures should be tailored to the particular company’s activities and its size and should take into account the risk involved.
  • Principle 2: Top-level commitment – The highest level of management of a company should commit to preventing bribery.
  • Principle 3: Risk assessment – The company must analyse the nature and extent of internal and external risks of bribery.
  • Principle 4: Due diligence – The company must apply due diligence procedures for the individuals who perform services on its behalf.
  • Principle 5: Communication – The company must have protocols in place that ensure that staff members within the company understand their anti-bribery obligations. They need to have a training programme on the various policies.
  • Principle 6: Monitoring and review – The company must monitor and revise procedures developed to prevent bribery to improve those procedures.

These principles provide direction for companies looking to formulate and implement adequate corruption prevention procedures in line with PRECCA’s requirements. They are persuasive rather than binding in South Africa, so a company relying on them should be able to show how each principle was applied to its own risk profile.

What may change next: the PRECCA Amendment Bill

Businesses should watch the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Amendment Bill (Bill 19-2026), a private member’s Bill introduced by ActionSA. Parliament published the explanatory summary in Government Gazette 54319 on 13 March 2026 and the Bill was tabled in July 2026.

Two proposals matter for compliance planning. The Bill would cut the section 34 reporting threshold for theft, fraud, extortion, forgery and uttering from R100 000 to R30 000, which would pull a great many smaller transactions, and a great many smaller businesses, into the mandatory reporting net. It would also introduce mandatory minimum sentences for corruption convictions, reported at 18 years’ imprisonment in the High Court and 15 years in the regional courts, with courts able to depart from the minimum only on substantial and compelling circumstances recorded on the record.

The Bill is not law. It still has to complete committee stages, National Council of Provinces consideration and presidential assent, and it may be amended along the way. It is, however, a clear signal of the direction of travel, and the lower reporting threshold in particular would be a meaningful change for small and medium businesses.

What businesses should do now

Businesses should ensure that their broader compliance frameworks are robust, as the section 34A offence applies to current, ongoing and future acts of corruption. It is also worth noting that the Cybercrimes Act creates additional reporting obligations where corruption involves electronic communications or computer systems.

Updated 14 April 2026 – Confirmed enactment of the Judicial Matters Amendment Act 15 of 2023 (effective 3 April 2024), and added detail on the section 34A strict liability offence and third-party contractor liability.

Updated 22 September 2026 – Corrected the description of the section 34 reporting duty against the text of the Act: the duty falls on a person who holds a position of authority, and the R100 000 figure applies only to theft, fraud, extortion, forgery and uttering a forged document, not to corruption offences, which are reportable with no monetary threshold. Reattributed the six “adequate procedures” principles to the UK Ministry of Justice guidance issued under section 9 of the Bribery Act 2010, rather than to a commentator. Added the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Amendment Bill (Bill 19-2026), gazetted 13 March 2026 and tabled in July 2026, which proposes cutting the reporting threshold to R30 000 and introducing mandatory minimum sentences. Confirmed that no government guidance on “adequate procedures” has been published as at September 2026, and corrected wording that still described the enacted amendments as proposals.