diff --git a/themes/powerline/README.md b/themes/powerline/README.md
index 9ee38271..0f871cdb 100644
--- a/themes/powerline/README.md
+++ b/themes/powerline/README.md
@@ -4,6 +4,9 @@ A colorful theme, where shows a lot information about your shell session.
 
 **IMPORTANT:** This theme requires that [a font with the Powerline symbols](https://github.com/powerline/fonts) needs to be used in your terminal emulator, otherwise the prompt won't be displayed correctly, i.e. some of the additional icons and characters will be missing. Please follow your operating system's instructions to install one of the fonts from the above link and select it in your terminal emulator.
 
+**NOTICE:** The default behavior of this theme assumes that you have sudo privileges on your workstation. If it's not the case (i.e you are running on
+a corporate network) you can set the flag 'CAN_SUDO=false' in powerbase.theme.bash
+
 ## Provided Information
 
 * Current path
diff --git a/themes/powerline/powerline.base.bash b/themes/powerline/powerline.base.bash
index 3abeda8d..108304e9 100644
--- a/themes/powerline/powerline.base.bash
+++ b/themes/powerline/powerline.base.bash
@@ -13,8 +13,10 @@ function __powerline_user_info_prompt {
   local user_info=""
   local color=${USER_INFO_THEME_PROMPT_COLOR}
 
-  if sudo -n uptime 2>&1 | grep -q "load"; then
-    color=${USER_INFO_THEME_PROMPT_COLOR_SUDO}
+  if ${CAN_SUDO}; then
+    if sudo -n uptime 2>&1 | grep -q "load"; then
+      color=${USER_INFO_THEME_PROMPT_COLOR_SUDO}
+    fi
   fi
   case "${POWERLINE_PROMPT_USER_INFO_MODE}" in
     "sudo")
diff --git a/themes/powerline/powerline.theme.bash b/themes/powerline/powerline.theme.bash
index 12de9cbe..c71b9c1a 100644
--- a/themes/powerline/powerline.theme.bash
+++ b/themes/powerline/powerline.theme.bash
@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@
 
 . "$BASH_IT/themes/powerline/powerline.base.bash"
 
+CAN_SUDO=true
+
 PROMPT_CHAR=${POWERLINE_PROMPT_CHAR:=""}
 POWERLINE_LEFT_SEPARATOR=${POWERLINE_LEFT_SEPARATOR:=""}