Addressing problems of companies doing business in highly corrupt countries

Chair:
Martin J. Weinstein, Partner, Foley & Lardner, USA, [email protected]
- The OECD Convention and the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Combating Public Corruption in a Global Economy
Matthew Murray, Chairman, St Petersburg Center for Business Ethics & Corporate Governance

Panellists:
Hans Englebrecht, Corporate Counsel, Lucent Technologies, Inc., the Netherlands, [email protected]
- How to Protect the Sales Process Against Corruption
Gregory Bruch, Former Assistant Director, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, [email protected]
- The Long Arm of the Law: Recent U.S. Enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by the Securities & Exchange Commission
Anna A. Ossipova, Director, Center for Business Ethics & Corporate Governance

Main Themes Covered

1. Effective Compliance Program/Code of Conduct as a tool for identifying and managing corruption risks

2. Review of U.S. SEC enforcement actions and the importance of government enforcement actions as providing "teeth" to newly enacted anticorruption legislation

3. Shared concerns about the different faces of corruption and how each undermines the Rule of Law; discussion regarding whether corruption has a cultural or political basis

4. The role companies take in fighting corruption; large multinational companies have an obligation to press for anticorruption business cultures in the countries in which they operate; small and medium-sized industry sectors can band together to sign integrity agreements and collectively change they way they do business.

Main Conclusions

1. Compliance Programs and Codes of Conduct are a good tool for companies and their employees to fight corruption.

2. As countries implement their anti-corruption legislation, it is important that they enforce it.

3. Companies can band together to collectively fight corruption as an industry.