IBE webinar recording: Stranger than fiction
#ICYMI - Catch up with the recording of the IBE webinar from 14 November 2024
15 November 2024
What is the ethical issue?
Some may view bribery and corruption as financial crimes, with no apparent victims. But corruption means that public money may be diverted from helping the most vulnerable in society, power is abused and infrastructure suffers.
Business relationships rely on trust. Bribery and corruption abuses that trust, and goods and services are not procured in a clear, ethical or transparent way. For this reason, an organisation or its employees should never accept or pay bribes, including facilitation payments.
However, while organisations need to comply with relevant legislation on bribery and corruption in the countries in which they operate, because there are varying standards of regulations throughout the world, this becomes a regulatory grey area. Organisations need to be aware that the UK Bribery Act 2010, and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act 1977 are both extraterritorial in their application.
In some countries, corruption can be so endemic as to be 'socially acceptable', for example, with requests from officials for 'facilitation payments' in order to get things done. A facilitation payment is a small sum of money paid to secure or expedite the performance of a routine or necessary action to which the payer has legal or other entitlement.
IBE Guidance
A summary of good practice
- In the UK, the 2010 Bribery Act requires that an organisation has adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery and corruption. Similar legislation also exists in other countries, such as Sapin II in France.
- The key is to ensure your organisation’s culture promotes doing business with integrity - encouraging the right behaviour, discouraging the wrong behaviour and rewarding those who speak up about breaches of your code of ethics. Only by aligning it with a strong culture will your company’s anti-corruption efforts be truly "adequate”.
- Organisations will need to take a zero tolerance stand and undertake not to pursue business that will require them or any group companies to engage in unethical or illegal practices, and refuse to accept business if it requires giving or receiving a bribe or kickback. Third parties need also to be able to demonstrate that they comply with this policy.
- In some jurisdictions, in addition to the UK, guidance is given on what is expected of an organisation to demonstrate it has adequate procedures.
Further resources
Fair enough?
Deputy Director, Rachael Saunders outlines some of the key findings from the 2023 Attitudes of the British Public to Business Ethics survey.
13 July 2023
Is your business ethical - and do your stakeholders think so?
Listen in as Survey Director, Christopher Cowton shares his thoughts on our latest survey, IBE Attitudes of the British Public to Business Ethics 2022.
30 June 2022
Attitudes of the British Public to Business Ethics 2022
Businesses and UK politicians must do better at demonstrating their ethical credentials if they are to win back the confidence of the British public - the 2022 results of the IBE's annual survey of the attitudes of the British public to business ethics.
29 June 2022
Business Ethics in the News 2021
This resource presents an overview of the ethical concerns and lapses, as well as the positive business ethics stories, that the IBE recorded for its media monitoring exercise in 2021. It provides an analysis of the year’s trends and the issues and sectors that featured most frequently.
24 January 2022
Ethics and Business: understanding public attitudes recording
View our latest recording.
20 January 2022
Attitudes of the British Public to Business Ethics 2021
Britain’s businesses could behave better - the 2021 results of the IBE's annual survey of the attitudes of the British public to business ethics.
17 January 2022
Attitudes. Ethics. Trust.
In this blog, Guendalina Donde, IBE's Head of Research, discusses the results of the 2020 Attitudes of the British Public to Business Ethics survey.
13 January 2021
Business Ethics in the News 2020
This briefing provides an overview of the ethical concerns and lapses that were recorded by the IBE in its monitoring of media coverage in 2020.
23 December 2020
#PandemicAndBeyond - An ethical dilemma series
In the next blog of the series, Pandemic and Beyond: the ethical issues, Simon Webley, IBE’s Research Director, looks beyond a code of ethics and shares some ethical dilemmas.
10 September 2020
In conversation with… Catherine Harris from Transparency International UK’s Business Integrity Programme and Maggie Mckie, Manager at PwC
Read our latest guest blog.
03 July 2020
Embedding Business Ethics: 2020 report on corporate ethics policies and programmes
This report is the ninth in the triennial series looking at corporate ethics policies and programmes. It is the IBE’s longest-running survey series, and continues to give valuable insights into how companies run their ethics programmes.
01 April 2020
In conversation with… Simon Webley, Research Director of the IBE
The new edition of the IBE report on ethics policies and programmes in large listed companies will be published on 01 April 2020. In preparation for the launch, we shared a preview of the results with some of our supporters and colleagues, asking them to comment on how these results relate to their practical experience in the field of applied business ethics.
25 March 2020
Business Ethics in the News 2019
This briefing provides an overview of the ethical concerns and lapses that were recorded by the IBE in its monitoring of media coverage in 2019. It gives an overview of which sectors and issues related to business ethics were most covered in the news. For 2019, we have recorded a total of 361 different stories involving lapses of companies with a UK presence.
29 January 2020
PaC Anti-Bribery and Anti-Money Laundering Bibliography
This bibliography of resources aims to provide professionals in the legal, accounting and property sectors with a repository of knowledge and guidance to help them stay up to date with the latest work that has already been completed on these topics, in order to ensure that the highest possible ethical standards are maintained.
15 January 2020