Combatting the Growing Corruption Epidemic in Western Industries

Alexander Lebedev and Vladislav Inozemtsev from Foreign Affairs recently posted the article: Grappling With Craft: How to Combat the Growing Corruption Epidemic. These authors stated that corruption “has become a major threat to the global economic order. It wreaks havoc on the societies of developing countries, fuels social unrest and violence, and increasingly undermines the stability and security of the West.” Not only has it become a major threat, but it also has become one of the world’s biggest topics, surpassing the Google search for terrorism (26.4 million) by producing more than 45.7 million results, according to the article.

 In particular, the post discusses the need for a unified global response to this growing issue, led by the United States and EU member states. The authors outline “three broad steps” that these efforts should focus on:

“First, Western policymakers must redefine the challenge by clearly distinguishing among different levels of fraud and identifying target areas for intervention. Second, a new international anticorruption pact must localize the problem and prevent its further spread. And third, countries shunning the pact must face financial isolation, while anticorruption movements within them receive international support”.

The Authors also describe the negative effects corruption has on societies, from an eroding weak governance to draining critical resources for economic development, and specifically the effect on Western industries:

“The past four decades have produced a large-scale Western industry -- employing asset managers, bankers, lawyers, and realtors -- dedicated to laundering dirty foreign money and lobbying for laws that make its activities harder to prosecute. As a result, the West is rapidly losing its immunity to corrupt practices, a vulnerability that erodes governance and opens the way for crises.”

As these crises' are increasing, cross-border anti-corruption enforcement by the DOJ and SEC is changing aggressively, and companies need to know where they stand in the context of these changes in order to implement an effective solution against corrupt practices.  Specifically, an effective anti-corruption management solution covers 7 categories that range from scope and quality of risk assessment to an anti-corruption compliance team. Source Intelligence has teamed with the Center for Responsible Enterprise and Trade (CREATe) to offer an informative, Anti-Corruption Crack-Down Webinar that presents key priorities for addressing supply chain risk, and what can be done to protect companies and brands from corruption. Reserve your spot here.

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