At the upcoming UN Conference of States Parties (CoSP) to the UNCAC in Panama City during 25-29 November 2013, the Basel Institute will officially launch its most recent publication, Emerging Trends in Asset Recovery (see above under “Recent publication”). The book will be distributed at our information booth where we look forward to welcoming you.

During the CoSP, the Institute will also be hosting and participating in a series of workshops, notably:

The Basel Institute worked closely with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to develop the Business Reporting Institution for the Ukraine, which represents a High Level Reporting Mechanism to address business corruption risks. An official agreement in respect of this new Institution was due to be signed in early November by the EBRD and the Government of Ukraine.

This process has currently been postponed by the Ukraine Government due to their need and request for further legal clarifications prior to the final signing of such agreement.

As part of the International Business Law LLM programme at the Europa Institute of the University of Zürich, the Institute’s compliance specialist, Gemma Aiolfi, also the Institute’s Head of Corporate Governance, Compliance & Collective Action, gave lectures on the topic of Corporate Criminal Law. This course module was offered for the first time in English to law students from around the world.

The course topics covered included corporate criminal liability, compliance and corruption.

The Basel Institute has joined the recently established Swiss National Compliance Roundtable. The aim of the Roundtable is to develop national standards of education and training for persons interested in Compliance with a view to raising and setting standards and qualifications.

A presentation will be made at the end of January 2014 to interested parties in the private sector, government and academia, which will outline the proposals for further work.

At the invitation of the OECD, the Basel Institute on Governance has joined the Advisory Board, which has been established to advise on the OECD’s Thematic Study on Business Integrity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The first meeting was held in Istanbul in October, with all Advisory Board members giving input into the questionnaire, which will form the basis for the first part of this study.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has requested the Basel Institute, along with a group of other health governance experts, to assist WHO in its efforts to define a Health Systems Governance agenda for the organisation.

An initial technical consultation meeting on the specific topic of “Governance: an essential element to achieve universal health coverage” took place on 11 November 2013 in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Institute presented a paper on “Old regime habits die hard: Institutional challenges to participatory governance in post-authoritarian Mexico” at the ECPR General Conference in Bordeaux, France (September). The paper presents findings from field research conducted in the context of the Institute’s two-year, EU funded research project on the linkages between corruption, governance and social accountability.

On 12 May 2014, the Government of Ukraine signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and several business associations, addressing bribery and promoting transparency and accountability.

Mandated by the EBRD to develop a mechanism to address unfair business practices and bribery for the purpose of improving the overall business climate in Ukraine, including prospects for foreign investment, the Basel Institute assisted in the set up of this MoU.

In the context of the Basel Institute's renewed collaboration agreement with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to conduct analytical research into concepts of governance and accountability, experts of the Basel Institute traveled to Finland, Moldova and Turkey to collect insights into the institutional arrangements governing the health system in these three countries.

The findings from this field research will be incorporated into a final report on "strengthening health systems by improving accountability for health systems in European Member States".

On April 28-30 2014, the Basel Institute on Governance held a workshop on Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods on Corruption at the University of Basel, Switzerland. The workshop brought together a group of 18 academics, practitioners from governmental and non-governmental institutions, as well as private sector compliance officers from 9 countries (Armenia, Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Greece, Indonesian, Italy, Peru and Switzerland).