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Holding the corrupt to account: the promise and potential of corruption sanctions
When states fail to hold corrupt actors to account, ordinary citizens pay the price. Corruption sanctions were born from the idea that no one should be above the law, no matter where they are in the world. In a new Working Paper, Dr Anton Moiseienko explores how these tools have evolved and offers recommendations for their more effective and legitimate use. Here we share the foreword to his paper by the Basel Institute's Andrew Dornbierer, Head of Policy and Research, International Centre for Asset Recovery. Foreword Every state has an obligation to investigate and prosecute corruption within their jurisdiction. Unfortunately, many states around the world are not willing to fulfil this responsibility. As a result, the very individuals within these states tasked with serving the public interest are instead given free rein to commit acts that not only serve themselves but also corrode the fabric of the state. And ordinary citizens have no alternative but to endure the ensuing economic and social damage. The development of sanctions tools targeting corruption stemmed from the idea that justice should be universal; that no one in any society around the world should be above the law. They are powerful tools, built on powerful principles. States introducing them understand that unchecked corruption will always suffocate a state’s ability to provide security, fairness and prosperity to its citizens. Comparatively though, corruption sanctions are still an underdeveloped concept and are far from perfect. Only a handful of states have introduced them, and those that have are not often using them to their full potential. They also spark valid concerns surrounding due process. These criticisms shouldn’t be ignored: they offer an insight on how these tools could be further developed and enhanced to ensure that they are more credibly and consistently applied. In his paper, Anton Moiseienko provides an excellent and well-researched overview of how corruption sanctions could be designed and employed to better achieve their potential. He explains how these tools have evolved over the last two decades and how they could be further refined to be more effective and achieve a wider range of impact. Critically, his paper is an indispensable resource for those looking to understand exactly how such sanctions can help states deter, disrupt and debilitate the notoriously corrupt that are unreachable through standard criminal justice tools. Learn more Read Dr Anton Moiseienko’s Working Paper “Corruption sanctions: What governments need to know” for a deeper analysis of the topic and key policy recommendations. Get a brief introduction to corruption sanctions from our related Quick Guide. Register for our public webinar "Corruption sanctions – reaching those beyond the law" on 18 June 2026, marking the launch of Dr Moiseienko's Working Paper.
Boosting business integrity in Asia: the power of public-private cooperation
A joint blog by Vanessa Hans, Director, Private Sector, Basel Institute on Governance, and Elodie Beth, Senior Manager, Anti-corruption, Global Relations, Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD . The post is also published on the OECD website. Clean, ethical business practices build trust, attract investors and create healthier markets. For the OECD, business integrity is key to levelling the global playing field and enhancing national competitiveness. Amid global regulatory uncertainty, countries like Indonesia and Thailand are stepping up. Both are taking meaningful steps to strengthen their anti-corruption frameworks as they move towards joining the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention – a critical milestone and prerequisite for future OECD membership. Their actions reflect a broader shift: governments across Asia increasingly recognise that corruption undermines competitiveness, deters investment and jeopardises sustainable, long-term growth. A 2024 regional study confirms it: Asian countries that have improved their control of corruption are far more likely to attract foreign direct investment and foster long-term growth. Regional co-operation and the role of Collective Action Recognising that no single actor can tackle corruption alone, public- and private-sector actors are joining forces at the regional level through the Anti-Corruption Initiative for Asia and the Pacific ACI , co-led by the OECD and Asian Development Bank. The ACI, jointly supported by the OECD and the Asian Development Bank, launched a business integrity workstream in 2019, initiated by the Government of Viet Nam as the host country. Last year, the Government of Bhutan held business integrity seminars, and in 2025, Indonesia is expected to host the Regional ACI Conference. These Collective Action efforts are underpinned by the OECD’s 2021 Anti-Bribery Recommendation, the first global standard to formally recognise the role of Collective Action and partnerships between the public and private sectors against foreign bribery. Spotlight on innovation: Promising business integrity initiatives across the region From risk mapping to regulatory reform, here are standout examples of how countries are taking action through public-private initiatives: Australia: The Bribery Prevention Network brings together business, civil society, academia and government to help small- and medium-sized enterprises prevent, detect and address bribery and corruption while promoting a culture of compliance. India: The Maritime Anti-Corruption Network, a global initiative, set up a HelpDesk in India serving as a real-time resolution mechanism that bridges the gap between the shipping industry and local authorities. It collects anonymous reports by shipping companies of bribe solicitation in ports and uses this data to map out risk areas and tailor its strategies to engage with local government authorities. Hong Kong, China: The Independent Commission Against Corruption is engaged in several sector-specific Collective Action initiatives, particularly in construction and banking. It collaborates with chambers of commerce and industry associations such as the Construction Industry Council. Thailand: In 2024, the Thai government amended its procurement law to recognise certification by the Thai Collective Action Against Corruption CAC initiative as proof of a company’s anti-corruption controls. This enables CAC-certified firms to qualify for public contracts above a certain threshold, incentivising private-sector compliance. These experiences illustrate how government authorities are increasingly participating in Collective Action initiatives to enhance their awareness-raising efforts, gather better evidence and develop tailored solutions that reflect the realities of different sectors and companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises. By engaging in such initiatives, government authorities can increase their overall outreach, lend greater legitimacy to private-sector anti-corruption efforts and effectively promote the adoption of business integrity policies. Building a regional community of practice To sustain momentum, the OECD and the Basel Institute on Governance have launched a regional community of practice. In 2023, the Asia-Pacific Collective Action Forum was held in Manila, Philippines, bringing together 50+ practitioners from diverse stakeholder groups across the region. The Asia-Pacific Anti-Corruption Collective Action Award recognised the growing number of initiatives in the region and celebrated their achievements. The Thai CAC received the inaugural award. Encouraged by the Forum’s success, participants expressed strong interest in sustaining and deepening exchanges among practitioners. A follow-up Collective Action workshop was held in 2024 in Bangkok, in collaboration with the Thai CAC. The workshop further strengthened the emerging community of practice and provided a valuable platform for peer learning. This regional community has created a meaningful space for peer learning and experience sharing. It has also contributed to greater alignment with international standards. Looking ahead: co-operation as the path forward These developments show that business integrity reforms are not only possible but already underway. In 2025, the OECD will release a policy paper examining the link between business integrity frameworks and competitiveness. The paper underscores how public-private cooperation is not only advancing reform, but also makes countries more attractive to investment and resilient to shocks. Although still in their early stages, the emergence of Collective Action and partnerships between the public and private sectors in Asia offers a promising path forward to advance integrity. Sustained cooperation will be crucial to fully realising the potential of these initiatives. Learn more and get engaged OECD work on fighting foreign bribery OECD and ADB Anti-Corruption Initiative for Asia and the Pacific B20 Collective Action Hub by the Basel Institute on Governance Working Paper 48: A collaborative approach to improve business integrity in ASEAN by Lucie Binder, Vanessa Hans and Anna Stransky, Basel Institute on Governance Working Paper 56: Anti-corruption Collective Action: A typology for a new era by Scarlet Wannenwetsch, Basel Institute on Governance
Australia is cracking down on foreign bribery
A guest blog by Ryan Carter, a law student at Arizona State University who is undertaking a legal research internship at the Basel Institute on Governance. On 8 September 2024, significant amendments to Australia’s foreign bribery laws will take effect. These changes follow long-standing concerns expressed by both the OECD Working Group on Bribery15/en/pdf and civil society about the low level of enforcement in this area in Australia. These concerns are not unjustified. Since Australia first introduced foreign bribery laws, only four companies and fewer than a dozen individuals15/en/pdf have been sanctioned. Many other investigations failed to result in sanctions since they fell short of the current law’s rigid requirements. The authors of the forthcoming amendments argue that the reforms will address these criticisms by overcoming the limitations of the currently “overly prescriptive and difficult to use” version of the law. So, what changes do these amendments introduce? What issues do they address? And most importantly, what impact will they have? The anticipated changes: expanding scope and reducing burden of proof In a nutshell, the amendments significantly expand the scope of the law. Amongst other things, they: broaden the foreign bribery offence to include the bribery of a political “candidate” and not just current holders of public office ; extend the offence to cover bribery payments made to gain “personal” advantages, rather than only payments made for “business” advantages; remove the requirement to demonstrate that an advantage obtained through bribery is “not legitimately due”, and replace it with a requirement to demonstrate that the bribing party had an intention of “improperly influencing” the official in question; remove the requirement to demonstrate that an official was influenced in the exercise of their official duties; and clarify that it is not necessary for the prosecution to prove that the bribing party sought to obtain a specific advantage. A new corporate liability offence The most important amendment is arguably the creation of a new, absolute liability offence targeting companies that “fail to prevent bribery of a foreign public official”. Under this new provision, a company may be found to have committed an offence when “an associate” of the company has committed bribery to obtain a “profit or gain” for that entity. This is a dramatic change to the current law. The current version of the law requires prosecutors to prove that either the company’s board or high-level managers committed the relevant bribery acts, or that the company had a corporate culture that tolerated non-compliance, for the company itself to be found liable. The new offence will significantly lower the prosecution’s burden of proof, in effect making it possible to hold companies liable under a much wider set of circumstances e.g. where the company’s executives have turned a blind eye to the corrupt acts of their employees . Notably, the amendments also provide companies with an avenue to rebut this offence if they can prove they had adequate procedures in place to prevent foreign bribery by their associates. In order to inform businesses about what constitutes “adequate procedures”, the Australian Minister of Justice now has a duty to publish guidance on the steps companies can take to prevent associates from bribing officials. Anticipated effect: increased enforcement and stronger prevention The authors of these amendments claim that the changes will ensure the law keeps pace with evolving foreign bribery schemes, and will overcome the challenges of establishing corporate criminal liability in cases of wilful blindness. They also argue that the removal of some of the prescriptive conviction requirements of the foreign bribery offence and the broadening of its scope will allow prosecutors to pursue foreign bribery charges in more cases. The amendments are largely modelled on similar reforms made in the United Kingdom in 2010, which directly contributed to a substantial increase in enforcement actions. According to the OECD, before 2010 the UK had sanctioned only one individual and one company for foreign bribery. By 2021, the UK had criminally sanctioned 25 individuals and 16 companies. Of those 16 companies, eight were specifically sanctioned for failure to prevent bribery offences. As in the UK, Australia’s amendments and new failure to prevent foreign bribery offence will broaden the jurisdictional scope of law and lower the prosecution’s evidentiary burdens. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to suggest that they will result in a similar increase in enforcement actions. Incentivising compliance In addition, these amendments are likely to enhance prevention efforts by incentivising companies to implement their own procedures to prevent foreign bribery. The UK reforms on which they changes were modelled also resulted in an increase in corporate compliance programmes. According to the OECD, the failure to prevent bribery offence and its “adequate procedures” defence in particular prompted the adoption of “well advanced” anti-corruption corporate compliance measures. There is a strong argument that these amendments will encourage similar action in Australia, as companies that implement such programmes will effectively shield themselves from liability for failing to prevent foreign bribery committed by their associates. A step forward It is encouraging to see Australia adopting substantial reforms to enhance its enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. On paper, these amendments look as if they will enable the prosecution of foreign bribery in a broader range of circumstances. They should also encourage more Australian companies to implement effective anti-bribery programmes. Ideally, these changes will noticeably improve Australia’s foreign bribery enforcement, and placate the ongoing concerns that Australia is not doing enough to fulfil its obligations under the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.
The Crown Resorts anti-money laundering fine: a wake-up call for the gambling industry
A blog by Zisheng Xing, a law student at the Arizona State University who is undertaking a legal research internship at the Basel Institute on Governance. A monumental anti-money laundering fine recently dropped in Australia, sending shockwaves throughout the gambling industry – a sector well-known for flying under the radar of anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism AML/CFT regulations. On 11 July 2023, the Federal Court of Australia ordered the Australian gambling giant Crown Resorts “Crown” to pay an AUD 450 million USD 300 million fine for repeatedly violating the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 “AML/CFT Act” between 2015–2022. The fine resulted from an agreement between Crown and Australia’s financial intelligence unit, AUSTRAC. This significant penalty is one of the largest in the gambling industry and serves as a severe reminder to casinos to implement and maintain effective AML/CFT systems. How did Crown breach Australia’s AML/CFT Act? The Australian Federal Court found that Crown’s Melbourne and Perth casinos: failed to implement transaction monitoring programmes that were “appropriate to the nature, size and complexity of their business”; lacked “appropriate procedures to ensure higher risk customers were subjected to extra scrutiny” in their “enhanced customer due diligence” programmes; failed to conduct “appropriate ongoing customer due diligence on a range of specific customers who presented higher money laundering risks”; failed to maintain effective “risk-based systems and controls in their AML/CFT programs”; failed to appropriately identify, timely assess and respond to ML/TF risks they faced; and failed to establish appropriate frameworks for management oversight. When assessing the propriety of the penalty, the Federal Court concluded that Crown’s violations were “systemic, longstanding and egregious” and that they permeated “every designated service” that the enterprise provided its customers. Risks posed by junkets A key finding of proceedings was that Crown had shown “a fundamental lack of regard” for the risk posed by junket operators. Junket operators are third parties who enter into agreements with casinos to facilitate gambling for high rollers. Junket operations often involve heightened AML risk, on the basis that they enable transfers of large amounts of money between jurisdictions. These transfers are administered in such a way that the source and ownership of funds involved can be easily obscured. Many of Crown’s contraventions were based on their relationship with such operations – even when the risks they presented were obvious. For example, AUSTRAC stated that Crown continued a “business relationship with a major casino junket operator” while “aware of allegations the operator was connected to organised crime." Additionally, AUSTRAC noted at least 75 “suspicious incidents” involving approximately AUD 23 million in cash found in a private gaming room to which Crown Melbourne had given a junket operator exclusive access. Why is this decision significant for AML/CFT? As outlined by AUSTRAC, “the casino industry by its very nature, faces serious risks of exploitation by criminals seeking to launder the profits of their illicit enterprises.” Consequently, it is crucial that enterprises involved in this industry strictly implement and maintain strong AML measures and comply with relevant state laws. The penalty imposed on Crown is a clear warning to the entire gambling industry that its AML/CFT compliance systems must be strong enough to meet obligations and “protect the… community and their businesses from serious financial crime.” The decision also shows the importance of significant civil or administrative sanctions to enforcing compliance. As highlighted in our quick guide to money laundering through the gambling industry, proportionate penalties such as these both deter future breaches and encourage casinos to invest in robust AML/CFT programmes. Learn more View our quick guide to money laundering through the gambling industry by Isys Lam and Andrew Dornbierer. For more on money laundering risk assessment more generally, see the Basel AML Index – the Basel Institute’s flagship index of money laundering and terrorist financing risks around the world.
Publications
Quick Guide 43: Corruption sanctions
How can governments respond to serious corruption when those responsible are beyond the reach of the law?
Weak institutions, political protection or limited law enforcement capacity can make it difficult to investigate or prosecute powerful individuals suspected of corruption. In response, some governments have turned to corruption sanctions.
Corruption sanctions allow governments to impose restrictions on people suspected of serious corruption even without a criminal conviction.
This Quick Guide introduces corruption sanctions, explains how they work and highlights both their potential and the concerns they raise.
About this Quick Guide
You are free to share and republish this work under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 Licence. It is part of the Basel Institute on Governance Quick Guide series, ISSN 2673-5229.
Working Paper 62: Corruption sanctions: What governments need to know
How can governments respond to serious corruption when those responsible are beyond the reach of the law? Some governments have turned to corruption sanctions to address this issue.
This Working Paper examines how corruption sanctions – tools that allow governments to impose asset freezes and travel bans on individuals suspected of corruption without any finding of guilt in a court – have evolved over the past decade, and offers recommendations for their more effective and legitimate use.
Download the Working Paper hereAdvantages and limitations of corruption sanctions
Corruption sanctions emerged primarily to address situations where notoriously corrupt individuals enjoy impunity within their own legal systems. Their key strengths lie in their flexibility and versatility:
- they can be applied regardless of any geographical link between the sanctioning state and the alleged corruption, based on relatively low evidentiary thresholds; and
- they can serve a wide range of objectives – from disrupting and deterring corrupt activity to condemning corruption, facilitating asset recovery and signalling support for another country’s law enforcement efforts.
However, the paper also highlights important limitations. Corruption sanctions are often wielded without a clear post-imposition strategy. And: their inherent flexibility comes with due process trade-offs, including broad governmental discretion and limited judicial oversight.
Recommendations
Drawing on an extensive analysis of the experiences of key jurisdictions – including the US, UK, EU, Canada and Australia – the author puts forward nine recommendations for governments on how to design and maintain credible and effective corruption sanctions regimes. These include publishing clear criteria for high-priority targets, strengthening transparency around licensing and delisting decisions, and exploring sanctions against professional enablers in major financial centres.
The paper is aimed primarily at policymakers but will also be of interest to anti-corruption activists, private-sector financial crime specialists and academics.
About this paper
This paper is published as part of the Basel Institute on Governance Working Paper series, ISSN: 2624-9650. You may share or republish it under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 International Licence.
This is a publication of the International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) at the Basel Institute on Governance. ICAR receives core funding from the Governments of Jersey, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and the UK.
The contents are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Basel Institute on Governance, its donors and partners, or the University of Basel.
International cooperation in the Migori County corruption case
This Case Study describes how Kenya obtained crucial overseas intelligence in a corruption case through the International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre, leading to the recovery of USD 1.8 million in assets for the Kenyan people.
About this Case Study
This publication is part of the Basel Institute on Governance Case Study series, ISSN 2813-3900. It is licensed for sharing under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
It is a publication of the International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) at the Basel Institute on Governance. ICAR receives core funding from the Governments of Jersey, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and the UK.
While we have made reasonable efforts to ensure the accuracy of information provided in this Case Study, neither the authors nor the Basel Institute’s donors and partners assume any responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions.