Chris MacDonald Discusses Business Ethics and Bribery

A long term blogger on business ethics matters, Chris MacDonald here speaks of the need for international business standard. Please read his post and go to his web site and sign up as a follower.

James Pilant

Bribery is Still a Challenge for International Business | The Business Ethics Blog

Bribery and other forms of corruption continue to pose a challenge to international business. Bribery is a problem because it distorts markets, saps economies, and hurts local communities. For all these reasons, bribery is illegal just about everywhere that has a functioning legal system. And as reported recently in the Wall Street Journal, many countries are stepping up efforts at enforcing anti-bribery laws. Both because of the possibility of prosecution, and because of the slippery slope between bribery and other forms of criminality, bribery poses significant business risks.

Clearly, improved enforcement is an important part of combatting bribery, and combatting corruption more generally. The temptation to win ‘by any means’ will always be there, and so tough rules need to be in place.

But another element is the promulgation and adoption of good, clear, international business standards. As it happens, I’m currently in Madrid as part of the Canadian delegation to an International Standards Organization working committee that is drafting a new “Anti-Bribery Management Systems” standard (ISO 37001).

via Bribery is Still a Challenge for International Business | The Business Ethics Blog.

MacDonald, C. (2014, March 26). Bribery is still a challenge for international business. Retrieved from http://businessethicsblog.com/2014/03/26/bribery-is-still-a-challenge-for-international-business/

From around the web.

From the web site, The Bung Blog.

http://thebungblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/time-to-stand-up-for-the-little-guys-girls/

Avid readers of this Blog, (aka gluttons for punishment) will remember my outburst last year. “Government Declares Bribery Not an Offence!”

The tenor of that little tome was to the effect that however sexy the Bribery Act 2010 might have been, it was not perceived as having much relevance, or bite, to the average Jo.

A well respected criminal QC, and good friend of mine, has described it in an article last year as a “Toothless Wonder.”

Much of the cynicism has arisen as a result of the common perception that the SFO being the principal prosecuting authority under the act, has a) no interest in, and b) no budget for, prosecuting anything but the most headline grabbing, stone cold bonkers cases that they can’t possibly lose.

There were dark mutterings from the departing Director that they were hot on the tails of a number of cases, but for now, Mum’s the word. We all await developments on that, especially in the light of the new Director’s protestations that the future of the SFO is secure, and, by implication perhaps, prosecutions are just around the corner. (So’s my Taxi apparently)

To be fair to David Green QC, as a lot of people have been pointing out, it takes time for any substantial case to be detected and investigated to the point of charge, and not being retrospective, the Bribery Act 2010 cannot apply to any act of Bribery committed before July 1st 2011.