Bribery & Corruption      

Complying with the Bribery Act 

  • In April 2010 the UK Parliament passed the Bribery Act.  The Act creates a new corporate offence of failing to prevent bribery. This will require all organisations working from the UK to have ‘adequate procedures’ in place to prevent corruption in their operations worldwide.  
  • Prior to the Act coming into force, there was significant debate in the UK regarding levels of hospitality that would be acceptable under the new law. To find out more about GoodCorporation's views click here.
  • Now that the Act has come into force, businesses need to ensure that they have Adequate Procedures in place in oder to prevent corruption.

 

GoodCorporation’s Bribery & Corruption Framework

  • To help businesses test the efficacy of the procedures they have put in place, GoodCorporation has developed an Anti Bribery and Corruption framework.
  • GoodCorporation's Bribery and Corruption Framework has been designed in the same way as its Standard for corporate responsibility. It has a list of 60 good management practices that companies should follow to protect themselves against the risk of malpractice initiated from inside or outside the organisation. Click here to see the Framework.

 

  • It has been developed using GoodCorporation’s extensive experience of testing anti-corruption practices in companies based in some of the world’s most challenging environments.

 

Anti-Bribery Policies

  • GoodCorporation supports clients to develop appropriate policies and systems, using this framework to identify where policy gaps may exist.

 

Assessment of Effectiveness

  • Assessment against the GoodCorporation Bribery and Corruption framework will give an independent view on how robust processes really are.
  • GoodCorporation’s ABC framework contains a list of practices that apply to any business or organisation. For companies that already have their own anti-corruption policy, or share an industry-wide one, the framework can be customised to suit particular requirements.
  • The assessment follows the same process as our Corporate Responsibility Standard. Assessors review the policies, the processes for deploying them, and the data that demonstrates their effectiveness. Key stakeholders are interviewed to test that processes really are working in practice. Detailed reports are given to senior management on areas of strength and weakness and the improvements that can be made are identified.

Due Diligence

  • GoodCorporation is using this framework to help its clients to manage risk reviews and set up due diligence processes on suppliers, contractors, intermediaries, agents and joint venture partners. Under the Act, a company may well be liable for the malpractice of third parties. Companies should put in place a decision-tree (see GoodCorporation's example here) to help them to decide which third parties they want to screen and should prepare a due diligence procedure to screen each type of third-party.

Training

  • GoodCorporation also provides a range of on-line and classroom based Anti Bribery and Corruption training to help its clients respond to the needs of the Act.