In today’s world we are seeing a crackdown worldwide on bribery and corruption. Organisations around the world charged with this task include Australia’s ICAC, whilst in the USA there is the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the UK has the Serious Fraud Office and there is also Transparency International – fighting corruption worldwide.
There is a very high likelihood of prosecution and subsequent fines or even jail time is higher than ever if your conduct is suspected to be corrupt. Businesses must be confident that their systems currently in place to prevent corruption are strong enough to stand up in court.
In the worst-case scenario whereby prosecution does occur, you need to feel confident that liability will not be placed on you as an individual. To prove this, you must produce evidence that you acted at all times with due diligence and took every possible precaution to prevent corruption.
In today’s article we discuss how to assess whether your anti-corruption compliance systems are good enough to support you in court.
Ask yourself these 2 vital questions:
- Do I have sufficient anti corruption controls in place?
- Are my policies, procedures and systems above reproach?
Chances are those questions will lead to several more questions. It can be difficult to know where to start on analysing the findings to sort out which questions or answers are integral to protecting your business from risk.
How can you ensure that protection is indeed in place for you and your business?
Consistent and regular monitoring is key. As with all compliance management, anti corruption measures must be reviewed diligently and often.
To assist in this review process and to assist with risk assessment, we have developed a free and comprehensive self-assessment. The Compliance Risk Self-Assessment comprises of 108 questions to assist you in determining whether you have sufficient controls in place to avoid corruption.
By undertaking an honest self-assessment, you will soon understand whether you are or are not reviewing your anti-corruption program with enough frequency and also whether you auditing and/or monitoring program is sufficiently set up to reveal potential problems and risks.
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