The risk of bribery and corruption is an ongoing challenge for firms of all sizes and around the globe. Corporate compliance measures, including robust policies and procedures supported by monitoring and surveillance, are required to protect firms against steep financial, reputational and regulatory risk from bribery, corruption and other unethical practices.

The Challenges of Corporate Compliance

The range of issues facing corporate ethics and compliance professionals is substantial:  insider trading, unethical employee activity, data protection and data privacy, creating a code of conduct that works, navigating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and anti-bribery/anti-corruption laws, to name just a few.

What’s the Definition of Bribery and Corruption?

Corruption involves the abuse of power by someone in a leadership position, or the bribery to influence a person of power to act a certain way. Corrupt behavior happens when a corporate executive, government official, or other person of power and influence abuses their position to secure personal gain.

Global Anti-Bribery and Corruption (ABC) Legislation

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 is a U.S. law that prohibits individuals and corporations from making payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business 

The FCPA has two main provisions:

Anti-Bribery Provisions: These prohibit the willful use of the mail or any means of interstate commerce to corruptly offer, pay, promise to pay, or authorize the payment of money or anything of value to any person, knowing that it will be offered to a foreign official to influence their actions 

Accounting Provisions: These require companies whose securities are listed in the U.S. to maintain accurate books and records and to have an adequate system of internal accounting controls 

UK Bribery Act

The UK Bribery Act of 2010 criminalizes the offering, promising, or giving of a bribe, as well as requesting, agreeing to receive, or accepting a bribe. 

Bribery of Foreign Public Officials: The Act also prohibits bribing foreign public officials to obtain or keep business. 

Failure to Prevent Bribery: Firms can be held liable if they fail to prevent bribery by associated persons, unless they can prove they had adequate policies and procedures in place to prevent such misconduct.

Canadian Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act (CFPOA)

The CFPOA prohibits the bribery of foreign public officials and requires accurate record-keeping and internal controls.

Australian Criminal Code Act 

The Australian Criminal Code Act includes provisions against bribery of foreign public officials and mandates strict penalties for violations.

Brazilian Clean Company Act

The Brazilian Clean Company Act, also known as the Brazilian Anti-Corruption Act, imposes civil and administrative liability on companies for acts of corruption against national or foreign public administration.

French Sapin II Law 

The French Sapin II Law requires companies to implement anti-corruption compliance programs and enhances the protection of whistleblowers.

Areas of Corruption Risk Across Employee and Firm Activities

Third-Party Relationships. Bribery cases can often involve third-party intermediaries, including customers, vendors or partners.

Employee Gifts and Entertainment. The giving and receiving of gifts, entertainment, and hospitality can blur the line between social norms and bribery.

Outside Business Activities. Directorships and board memberships can pose significant risks of bribery and corruption by creating potential conflicts of interest where individuals may use their positions to influence decisions for personal gain or accept bribes or personal favors.

Key Elements of a Robust Anti-Bribery and Corruption Compliance Program

• A Company Code of Conduct and robust policies and policies that prohibit employees from offering or accepting bribes, including lavish gifts, trips, or other forms of inducement.
• Regular training on the Code of Conduct and policies and procedures to ensure employees understand their compliance obligations, followed by attestation to confirm receipt and understanding—and to provide a regulatory paper trail.
• Ongoing third-party due diligence to ensure that third parties acting on behalf of your organization also adhere to anti-bribery and corruption guidelines.
• Monitoring and surveillance of elements including employee communications, access to insider information, gifts and entertainment activity and trading activity to surface red flags that indicate risk of bribery and other corrupt behavior.
• Workflows, case management and record keeping to streamline ABC and corporate compliance activities and provide evidence of compliance

MCO Provides Streamlined and Effective Management of Corporate Compliance and Anti-Bribery and Corruption Activities.

It’s clear for firms that bribery, like other compliance violations, can no longer be considered part of the cost of doing business. The MyComplianceOffice suite helps corporations manage compliance and ethics programs, ensuring that the reputation of the firm is safeguarded and that a culture of high ethical standards and compliance is maintained.

With MCO's Know Your Third Party and Know Your Employee solutions, critical corporate compliance activities can be automated including outside interest and directorship reporting, monitoring of employee trading activities, code of ethics attestations, third-party due diligence, case and issue management, policy lifecycle management and much more. 

By automating the end-to-end management of request processes, compliance monitoring, and exception management associated with conflicts-of-interest policies, you can be confident that best practices are fully embedded in your compliance program. 

For more information on how we can help your organization manage corporate compliance and mitigate the risk of bribery and corruption impacting your firm, contact us today.