By Stephanie Gallagher, JD
stephanie.gallagher@corporatecompliance.org
Global anti-bribery and anti-corruption efforts are becoming quite the hot topic as several countries take steps to address bribery and corruption. As a result of these trends, the importance of global compliance programs is becoming more and more apparent.
A recent example is Brazil’s Clean Companies Act, which has been getting a lot of attention lately with its recently issued rules establishing more detail for determining penalties and parameters for corrupt behavior and outlining the elements of an acceptable compliance program. The Clean Companies Act went into effect in January 2014, but the long-awaited rules clarifying the penalties and elements were just recently issued by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in March 2015. In Brazil, bribery investigations related to the World Cup and Petrobas are also underway.
Debbie Troklus wrote yesterday, in Compliance Across All Borders, that there are 26 different countries represented (out of 72 attendees) at the SCCE Compliance and Ethics Academy in Brussels, Belgium. This really reinforces the importance of having a solid global compliance program, and highlights that compliance is indeed, a global issue, and many countries are taking steps to implement and improve their programs.
Interestingly, many of the best practices for building these programs mirror the seven elements of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Troklus specifically references the amended Spanish Code in her post. Each country has their own take and language regarding the elements, but, according to Troklus, “At the end of the day, we all have the seven elements in common.”
Now more than ever, it is important for businesses to look at their international compliance programs, and assess whether the program is adequate to face these real issues of bribery and corruption abroad. Doing so now, before there is a problem, will pay dividends when, and if, future issues arise.