Tag Archives | Private Sector

EU needs to pay attention to corruption on its own doorstep

In an opinion piece in the latest edition of New Europe Jana Mittermaier, Head of Transparency International Liaison Office to the EU, argues that if European leaders are serious about fighting corruption, they need to pay closer  attention to the behaviour of their companies. The most recent results of the Bribe Payers Index (BPI) show that [...]

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Mexico and the G20 presidency: stronger leadership and anticorruption effort needed

Eduardo Bohórquez and Deniz Devrim of Transparency International’s Mexican Chapter reflect on their country’s efforts to fight foreign bribery and new opportunities for its upcoming G20 presidency. In the 2011 Bribe Payers Index (BPI), Mexico ranks on position 26 out of 28 countries with a score of 7.0 on a scale where 0 means Mexican [...]

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Bribe Payers Index 2011: when companies bribe other companies

On Wednesday 2 November, Transparency International will launch the Bribe Payers Index 2011, which ranks the perceived propensity of 28 countries and 19 sectors to bribe abroad. Written for Transparency International’s 2009 Global Corruption Report by David Hess, a Professor of Law at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, this excerpted article looks [...]

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Cleaning up business in Malaysia

“In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don’t have the first, the other two will kill you.” The American investor Warren Buffet’s words of advice struck a chord. His words were quoted by another man intimately familiar with the world of business, K.M.Lee, Managing [...]

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Corruption and UK businesses: Why we need the bribery act

Tetraethyl lead – a compound used in leaded petrol – was a major source of income for the international chemical firm, Innospec, before health and environmental concerns led to its abolishment in the US and Europe more than ten years ago. The poisonous chemical – which has been proven to stunt the mental development of [...]

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Prosecuting bribers: Canada (finally) steps up to the plate

Last month, Canada was the worst performing G7 country in Transparency International’s OECD Anti-Bribery Convention Progress Report. James M. Klotz, President of Transparency International Canada, writes about the country’s landmark first foreign bribery case. Until recently Canada had a dismal record of enforcing its anti-corruption legislation. In the 12 years since the Corruption of Foreign [...]

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The very questionable case for good corruption

François Valérian, the head of private sector programmes at Transparency International has written a post for the blog of our colleagues at the Task Force for Financial Integrity and Economic Development. Here’s what he writes: “A Wall Street Journal article and a BBC program have recently discussed the potential merits of corruption. This seemingly provocative [...]

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Corporate responsibility and anti-corruption – Is there a case for greater integration?

It’s impossible these days not to notice the steady stream of news coverage on bribery and corruption scandals from the pages of financial papers like the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times into mainstream media and the blogosphere. Bribery allegations, prosecutions and record-setting fines, many of which involve corporate titans, are reported in the press [...]

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Can bribes paid by private firms cause “social damage”?

Yes! It is possible that firm pays for the damages caused to a society at large when caught bribing governmental officials! This is the case now in Costa Rica where Alcatel-Lucent, the French-American communications company, agreed to pay US $10 million to the Costa Rican State as a compensation for the “social damage” provoked to [...]

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Anti-corruption conventions: A new fight

The anti-corruption movement and its partners are readying for their next battle in the fight against abuses and the disregard for transparency, integrity and accountability.  Yet the location is not in a boardroom or in parliament, but in a convention centre in Doha, Qatar. Here, representatives from governments and civil society will be convening discussions [...]

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