One year after enforcement of the UK Bribery Act began, less than one-tenth (9.3 percent) of those polled during a recent Deloitte webcast are concerned about it and just 24.2 percent have changed their anti-corruption programs to comply. Yet, 62.6 percent of the respondents say the financial crisis has increased corporate corruption globally.
“While UK Bribery Act enforcement seems to be off to a slow start with the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office only having prosecuted one criminal case under the Act, U.S. enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act continues at a strong pace, particularly in its focus on individual executives,” said Lupe Gonzalez, director in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) practice of Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP (Deloitte FAS).
corruption and bribery
More than half (51.1 percent) of respondents expect the number of executives individually charged with corruption violations will increase in the second half of 2012.
“The onus of determining the difference between customary and excessive gifts still lies heavily with companies,” said Chris Georgiou, partner in Deloitte FAS’s FCPA consulting practice. “In countries where a significant portion of certain industries–like healthcare or oil and gas—are government-run, efforts to prevent bribes of government employees are constantly evolving to respond to the ever changing schemes designed by employees to circumvent controls.”
Deloitte polled more than 1,200 business professionals from the life sciences, banking and securities, technology, retail and distribution, consumer products, insurance and other sectors during a recent webcast titled, “The Changing Global Anticorruption Legal Landscape.”
Source : inaudit
