Multinational companies are no strangers to problems of corruption in their supply chains, which can bring significant legal, financial and reputational risks. Especially when entering new markets, many companies find it difficult to identify credible local partners and to assess their adherence to anti-corruption regulations.
The Basel Institute on Governance and the Thai Institute of Directors (IOD), in conjunction with the Thai Private Sector Collective Action Against Corruption (Thai CAC), have today signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly support the promotion of anti-corruption compliance.
The agreement covers the launch of a pilot project that aims to encourage the local certification of anti-corruption compliance programmes in SMEs, while alleviating the due diligence burden on multi-national companies.
The Indonesian Collective Action against Corruption (CAC) platform enables Indonesia’s private sector to collectively create, adopt, and spread effective anti-corruption and compliance policies by taking the initiative to curb corruption and promote a clean business ecosystem.
The CAC aims to:
Local certification is emerging as an interesting way for large companies and their supply chains to help address compliance and due diligence issues that can be a barrier to business. A recent Basel Institute working paper showed how local certification programmes developed with a Collective Action approach can help:
How can local certification of small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) help to alleviate anti-corruption due diligence for SMEs as well as multinational corporations (MNC) seeking to work with them. This Working Paper by the Basel Institute's Collective Action team attempts to answer that question based on discussions and analysis of current local certification initiatives in different countries and sectors.
Our Collective Action team has launched a new online resource on local certification initiatives aimed at making third-party due diligence quicker, easier and more effective for companies large and small.
It contains the initial findings of an ongoing research project funded by the KBA-NotaSys Integrity Fund. The project explores how local certification for compliance programmes and professionals can help:
Representatives from nine leading Collective Action initiatives that offer local anti-corruption compliance certification gathered yesterday at a virtual roundtable. The event was part of a wider Basel Institute's project on certification initiatives funded by the KBA-NotaSys Integrity Fund.
The idea is to support local certification of anti-corruption compliance programmes in particular in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that supply larger customers.
Initiative
Tax Transparency and Corruption
The project aims to change the dynamics of the interaction between business and tax administrations and to deepen the cooperation between tax authorities and other law enforcement agencies in countering tax evasion and other financial crimes. The project would promote the concepts of good tax governance and the importance of a transparent tax system for economic development and how law enforcement agencies and tax authorities can cooperate to counter the misuse of beneficial ownership and client/attorney privileges to counter evasion and money laundering.
This project aims to support the efforts of the Ivorian Government and specialised agencies by encouraging and providing support to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the implementation of good corporate governance measures.
The first objective of this project is to raise awareness about the importance and benefits of implementing good corporate governance measures. Examples of good practices and ways to implement these practices will be presented to participating SMEs through a year-long training scheme and the dissemination of a monthly newsletter.
CoST – the Infrastructure Transparency Initiative is the leading global initiative improving transparency and accountability in public infrastructure.
CoST works with government, industry and civil society to promote the disclosure of infrastructure project data. It validates and makes this data easy to understand through an assurance process and ensures this information reaches citizens. This helps to empower citizens to demand better infrastructure and hold decision makers to account.