Late last week, one of the world’s largest integrated telecommunications services operators, VimpelCom, agreed to pay a $835 million settlement to U.S. and Dutch authorities. The company is accused of paying $114 million to Uzbek president Islam Karimov’s relative, widely believed to be his daughter, Gulnara Karimova. The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) claims that… Read More
Corruption costs a lot of money for citizens around the globe. The World Economic Forum and the World Bank estimates that corruption reduces global GDP by 5% ($2.6 trillion) per year with over $1 trillion paid in bribes. For businesses, corruption makes up 10% of the total cost of doing business and up to 25% of… Read More
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates in a 2013 report that child mortality rates in countries with high levels of corruption are about one third higher than in countries with low corruption, and infant mortality rates are almost twice as high. When officials use their positions for private gain – such as awarding concessions… Read More
The good news according to the 2015 Anti-Bribery and Corruption (ABC) Benchmarking Report is that many risks have plateaued since the report’s launch in 2011. The bad news is that the survey answers still paint a discouraging picture of compliance officers’ struggles to implement a global strategy for anti-bribery compliance and to tame vendor and… Read More
According to an Ernst and Young Report, the U.S. Department of Justice said in 2012 that more than 90% of its anti-corruption actions involved the actions of third parties. The heads of compliance programs worry that they don’t know where to begin when designing a process for reviewing all third-party business partners. Why we are so… Read More
Should the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) be used as a vehicle for restorative justice? The FCPA is currently enforced with the aim of deterring the bribery of foreign officials. The 1977 law prescribes civil and criminal liability for individuals and entities, with the potential for criminal fines of up to $25 million and… Read More