The trade in illegal timber and timber products leads to massive economic losses and environmental damage for the countries that are exploited. The World Bank has estimated that up to US$23 billion worth of timber is illegally felled or produced from suspicious origins each year, leading to revenue losses from uncollected logging licenses or taxes.
Topic:
Corruption, Crime, Globalization, Natural Resources, and World Bank
Corporate lobbying and financing of political activities are carried out by most large corporations. Lobbying enables them to understand, track and shape the development of legislation and regulation. Financial and in-kind contributions to parties and campaigns can be used to support a country's political process and development. Both sets of activities, when undertaken with integrity and transparency by a company, can be a legitimate and positive force. Yet, the extensive funds at the disposal of businesses and the close relationship that exists between many companies and lawmakers can lead to undue, unfair influence in a country's policies and politics.
A comprehensive regulatory framework for the private sector is a prerequisite for a transparent, honest and just society: where regulation is weak, corruption risks grow strong. As the primary rule makers and enforcers, governments have a responsibility to ensure the effective regulation of markets, protection of citizens and enforcement of laws. Ultimately, an inadequate or unstable regulatory framework for the private sector — without the will, power or resources to enforce legislation — facilitates the marginalisation of stakeholder rights, distortion of markets and negligent or corrupt practices.
Corporate integrity is often perceived to be the product of ethical leadership, strong compliance and effective regulations that prevent and sanction wrong-doing. While these elements are essential, each on their own is not sufficient to comprehensively and sustainably tackle the broad range of interrelated corruption risks that face companies.
Topic:
Corruption, Crime, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Cartels are illegal and costly. They inflate prices for consumers, exact an economic toll on countries and undermine the integrity of companies. Cartels can form in any sector, ranging from health care and transport, to construction and telecommunications. They leave no industry untouched or consumer unburdened. When companies engage in collusion by conspiring to fix prices, markets become inefficient and consumers bear unjustified price hikes that can reach up to 100 per cent.
Topic:
Corruption, Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Law
The collapse of global financial markets in September 2008 has ignited a debate on what caused their quick undoing. As captured in the comments of the OECD Secretary-General, there is a growing sentiment that poor corporate governance is one of the forces to blame. It allowed the transparency, accountability and integrity of companies to be compromised and for abuses to go unchecked, particularly on matters of corruption.
Topic:
Corruption, Genocide, Markets, and Financial Crisis
Strong political parties that can compete for power in fair elections are essential to modern democracies. Political parties need resources for building solid organisations and canvassing public support, yet large donations have the potential to compromise the independence of elected officials, undermining democratic values and good governance. Laws and regulations cannot always prevent the undue influence of money and private interests in politics. Transparency is essential.
Topic:
Corruption, Non-Governmental Organization, International Affairs, and Governance
Bribery and corruption remain endemic problems in many countries, weakening governance and posing a major impediment to development. At the same time, bribery and corruption are a significant risk for companies around the world: not only must companies comply with anti-bribery legislation, but corrupt company practices are increasingly scrutinised and punished by both investors and society at large who demand that companies behave as responsible corporate citizens. To ensure compliance with laws and to manage the broader risk of corruption, firms must adopt coherent policies and systems to prevent and redress bribery and corruption.
Topic:
Corruption, International Trade and Finance, International Affairs, Governance, and Peacekeeping
The Business Principles for Countering Bribery were originally developed through an extensive multi-stakeholder process involving companies, non-governmental organisations and trade unions as a tool to assist enterprises to develop effective approaches to countering bribery in all of their activities.
Topic:
Corruption, International Trade and Finance, International Affairs, and Governance
Transparency International's (TI) 2009 Global Corruption Barometer (the Barometer) presents the main findings of a public opinion survey that explores the general public's views of corruption, as well as experiences of bribery around the world. It assesses the extent to which key institutions and public services are perceived to be corrupt, measures citizens' views on government efforts to fight corruption, and this year, for the first time, includes questions about the level of state capture and people's willingness to pay a premium for clean corporate behaviour.
Topic:
Corruption, International Trade and Finance, International Affairs, Governance, and Law