Archives par catégorie: Le goodblog

Will the Yates Memo have an impact beyond the US border?

Earlier this month the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a memorandum from the Deputy Attorney General announcing the Department’s intention to pursue aggressively any individuals involved in corporate crimes. According to the memorandum, the DOJ believes that seeking to hold individuals to account for perpetrating illegal misconduct is one of the most effective ways of…

Getting to grips with gambling controls

As the Gambling Commission consults on new licensing standards that could include a social responsibility code as well as advertising restrictions, four of Britain’s biggest bookmakers have formed The Senet Group in a move to promote responsible gambling. At this stage, their initiatives focus on advertising: removing adverts for touch-screen roulette machines from their windows…

A Problem Shared …

Despite concerted efforts to combat corruption by business and governments, bribery still poses a significant risk for international corporations, particularly those operating in some of the more challenging regions of the world. Demands for payments remain commonplace, leaving businesses to wonder if anything has really changed despite their considerable investment in anti-bribery programmes to comply…

woman's hand signing a contract

Zero-hours contracts – the good, the bad and the ugly

Zero-hours contracts are in the news again. From the estimates last summer that 200,000 employees were on zero-hours contracts, it now appears that there are an estimated 1.4 million jobs offered on such terms, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). More than one in 10 employers use such contracts….

The challenges of ethics and compliance in Engineering & Construction Projects

Marrying the demands of the UK Bribery Act with the multiple suppliers involved in Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) contracts is proving to be one of the bigger challenges for Bribery Act compliance. Clients and contractors joined us for our Business Ethics Debate at the House of Lords this month and engaged in a frank discussion…

EU countries pose corruption risks for business

The first EU Anti-Corruption Report, reveals that the playing field for businesses in Europe is far from level. Sixty-nine per cent of the businesses surveyed by the EU (nearly 8,000) felt that paying bribes and exploiting political connections were the easiest ways to obtain certain services. Three quarters of companies surveyed considered corruption to be…

Forewarned is forearmed? So why don’t more businesses encourage whistleblowers?

Whistleblowing hotlines come highly recommended.  The Ministry of Justice includes whistleblowing or speak-up lines as a key bribery prevention procedure in its guidance on the Bribery Act. Under the Combined Code on Corporate Governance, companies listed in the UK are obliged to have whistleblowing arrangements or explain why not. In the US, listed companies are…