Bribery - not knowing is no excuse
Jinfo Blog

By Tim Buckley Owen

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Companies are ill-prepared for the new Bribery Act, says a report from Thomson Reuters. Small wonder – another survey finds that most organisations are worried about the accuracy of their corporate data, while a third suggests that most would never admit to corporate risk or compliance failures anyway.

Brought into force on 1 July, the United Kingdom’s new Bribery Act creates an offence of failing to prevent bribery by people working for or on behalf of a business – including when the business doesn’t even know about it. However companies can escape liability if they can show that they have adequate procedures in place to prevent it.

It doesn’t matter where the bribery takes place – any organisation with a presence in Britain could be liable. And it applies to organisations associated with the business too, not just employees; the Act catches recruitment firms, agents, consultants and subcontractors.

The UK Ministry of Justice has published detailed guidance to the Act, and there’s handy advice on its implications from law firm Pinsent Masons. The Ministry sets out six principles for compliance, including top level commitment, occasional risk assessments and checking out third parties.

But a recent survey by Thomson Reuters of more than 400 senior compliance officers and others affected by the legislation indicated that almost 40% felt they needed more time to prepare for it – and lack of awareness at board level was one of their biggest concerns. To be sure, TR’s survey is designed to promote its own Accelus suite of governance, risk and compliance products – but the findings are striking nevertheless, not least because another report shows that most compliance problems never come to the attention of top management anyway.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit study Ascending the Maturity Curve, few companies have the “big picture” view they need for effective risk and compliance management. Most risk failures take place at the business unit level, people down the food chain don’t want the bosses to find out – so they fix it locally and keep quiet, leading inevitably to wasteful and redundant procedures and organisational failure to learn from the problem.

Most IT decision makers are at least aware that their data isn’t reliable, and that more accurate stuff is needed for smarter decision-making, if a further survey from business intelligence specialist Information Builders is to be believed. But again,  Information Builders has its own reasons for publishing such a survey – and all the business intelligence in the world may not fix things if employees are deliberately keeping inconvenient truths concealed.

So there are serious information management issues to be addressed here. Technology can facilitate improvement – but an even greater incentive may be fear of prosecution at the top.

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