Transparency International’s latest world map of corruption shows companies still must be vigilant, wherever their operations

In the global fight against corruption, large companies can and sometimes do influence a host country’s actions for the better – though more often than not it’s a less active, risk-assessment approach to limiting liability.

A common starting point is the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, a mainstay source of information whose country risk profiles have long helped companies prioritise their compliance and remediation programmes.

The latest index, released at the end of 2012, had sober findings: levels of bribery, abuse of power and secret dealings are still very high in many countries.

Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia once again clung to the bottom rung of the index, with two-thirds of the 176 countries scoring below 50 on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be very clean).

Some European Union countries had low scores, including Italy (72), Romania (66), and Slovakia (62). Croatia, which is expected to join the EU in 2013, had the lowest perceived corruption in south-eastern Europe, with a score of 62.

With the exception of Georgia, special scorn was reserved for Russia (28) and other former Soviet republics deemed “utterly untransparent and non-accountable to citizens”, by Transparency International’s Svetlana Savitskaya.

What does all this mean for business in 2013?

“The challenge to the [Transparency International] list is what’s not mentioned,” says Philippa Foster Back, director of the Institute of Business Ethics.

That starts with high-ranking compliance officers regularly communicating with managers in the field. Training and clear internal communication are paramount, as are detailed due diligence protocols for screening third-party business partners. These efforts, in turn, need to be bolstered by regular audits, an effective monitoring programme, as well as quick-acting remediation efforts in the event of any improper activity.

“All companies say they have their values, but they don’t necessarily translate them all the way through to getting them ingrained into their workforce,” says Foster Back.

Adequate compliance

Best practices in this regard are set out in the seven elements of a corporate compliance programme under the US sentencing guidelines, the 13 good practices set out by the OECD on internal controls, ethics, and compliance, and the UK Bribery Act’s six principles of an adequate procedures compliance programme.

Corporate reporting on these anti-corruption programmes is still one more step companies need to have in place if they are adequately to fight corruption, says Karen Egger, a private sector team manager at Transparency International.

Companies themselves have to be transparent in their reporting. They have to disclose more information about how they mitigate corruption, make public their organisational structure, and publish detailed financial data on money flows in the countries in which they operate.

“It’s a leap of faith we make,” says Egger, “but one might suggest that companies that are very active in countries that score poorly [in the TI index] and also don’t have robust transparent corporate reporting, are going to be riskier companies – because they have the risk and aren’t managing it well.”