Corruption remains a major challenge for international business. While the US, the UK and other Western governments have introduced strict laws making it a criminal offence to pay bribes abroad, standards of governance remain, at best, inconsistent in key international markets. Well-managed international companies have no choice but to comply with their countries’ anti-corruption laws, yet they are often faced with competitors that follow different standards. The result is that there are often deep inconsistencies between legal principles and commercial practice.

The survey was conducted in mid 2013. All the respondents occupy senior positions in their companies’ legal or compliance departments; 60% were general counsels, chief legal officers or deputies to holders of these posts; 20% were company secretaries; others were senior compliance officers (8%), legal directors (7%) or legal counsels (5%).
The respondents were from a total of 316 companies worldwide. The Asia-Pacific region was best represented with 109 companies, followed by Western Europe (75), North America (49), Latin America (34), South Africa (30), the Middle East (11) and the former Soviet Union (8). Between them, they represent 19 commercial sectors: the largest categories were manufacturing (72 companies), financial services (59), energy and natural resources (41), and professional services (24).

Control Risks 2013