Category Archives: Commentary

Integrity Pacts: A Contractual Approach to Facilitate Civic Monitoring of Public Procurement

Posted on by
12

Public procurement is one of the highest risk areas for corruption. A public project contaminated with corruption is a recipe for disaster: ordinary citizens suffer from substandard facilities and services; competitive companies lose out when the bidding is rigged; and government money vanishes without making a difference. To rein in procurement corruption in, improving transparency and civic monitoring is vital. That’s why an “integrity pact” (IP)—a legally-binding contractual provision that commits all parties to comply with anticorruption best practices from the time the tender is designed to the completion of the project—can be such a useful tool.

An IP is more than a demonstration of commitment to avoid corruption practices on the part of its signatories. An IP contains obligations for bidders and government authorities, among other things, to refrain from offering or accepting bribes and to disclose all contract expenses and commissions; the IP also sets out sanctions for non-compliance, such as termination of the contract, liability for damages, or debarment from future public contracts. Perhaps most importantly, an IP creates a monitoring process where an Independent External Monitor—which can be an individual, a civil society organization, or a group with combined expertise and technical support—independently scrutinizes the deal for any anomaly or violation of the IP, and ensures proper implementation of the contract and the satisfaction of all stakeholders’ obligations. To execute these functions, the monitor is entrusted to examine government tender documents, bidders’ proposals, and evaluator’ assessment reports of the bids, to visit construction sites and contractor offices, and to facilitate exchange with the local communities and public hearings.

IPs have previously been used in public procurement projects in many countries, including Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Portugal, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Greece, Italy, India, and many others. It’s notable that many of the states that have embraced IPs are countries where governments have a long track record of corruption and abuse of power. IPs have at least three roles to play to help facilitate transparency and civic monitoring so as to safeguard the competitiveness and fairness of the procurement process:

Continue reading →

Brazil’s “Clean Slate” Law Keeps Lula Off Ballot — Now Let’s Smear His Prosecutors

Posted on by
2

Brazil’s top electoral court ruled Friday, August 5 (here), that former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, now serving a 12-year sentence for accepting a bribe, cannot stand as a candidate in Brazil’s upcoming presidential elections.  “Lula,” as he is universally known, was to be the candidate of one of Brazil’s major parties, and if pre-election polls are to be believed, he stood a very good chance of winning, setting up the unusual (to say the least) situation of a head of state governing from a jail cell.  Absent a last-minute reversal by Brazil’s Supreme Court, Lula will now sit out the election in jail and the threat Brazil’s government will be run by a convict is over.

Lula’s supporters claim he is a political prisoner and is being unfairly denied the right to run for president.   In doing so, they have glossed over the extraordinary protections the Brazilian legal system has afforded him, both in his effort to overturn his conviction and to run for office.  Having failed in the courts of law, they are now trying to smear the prosecution in the court of public opinion.  A report from a well-placed source in Brazil — Continue reading →

Some Preliminary Thoughts on US v. Hoskins and its Implications for FCPA Enforcement

Posted on by
1

The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is aggressively enforced but rarely litigated—most actions are brought against corporate entities that settle with the government. For that reason, any judicial opinion on the FCPA’s meaning, especially one from an appellate court, will attract a great deal of attention.

A couple weeks back, a US federal appeals court based in New York decided such a case, US v. Hoskins. The case addressed the question of whether a foreign national whose relevant conduct took place entirely outside the United States could be charged, not with violating the FCPA, but with conspiracy to violate the FCPA and/or aiding and abetting an FCPA violation. I’m a bit late to the discussion of Hoskins, which has already produced a great deal of commentary in the FCPA blogosphere (see here, here, here, here, and here). But for what it’s worth, here’s my quick summary of what the case is about, followed by some knee-jerk thoughts and observations about its significance. Continue reading →

Corporate Liability for Corruption in India: Some Notes on Reform

Posted on by
1

Last month, the Indian legislature passed sweeping amendments to the Prevention of Corruption Act. If accepted in their present form, those amendments portend a major shift in India’s antiquated legal regime pursuing corporate criminal liability, making it much easier to go after corporations on corruption charges. (The amendments make other changes as well, which I have discussed elsewhere. Here, I only focus on the changes that would pertain to corporate liability for corruption offenses.) The amendments do make some welcome changes, but they do not go far enough to update India’s antiquated legal regime for corporate criminal liability. I’ll touch on three features of this regime and discuss how the new amendments do or do not effect significant changes. Continue reading →

Will the Swiss Government Heed Civil Society’s Advice When Returning Stolen Assets to Uzbekistan?

Posted on by
Reply

Readers of this blog know the Swiss government faces a dilemma in returning several hundred million Swiss francs of stolen assets to Uzbekistan (here and here).  Although the current government has taken small steps towards reform, it remains dominated by the same clique of Soviet-era apparatchiks whose corrupt ways were behind the theft of the assets. Returning the money thus runs a high risk that it will go right back to the culprits or their cronies.

At the same time, the Swiss government has an obligation under the UN Convention Against Corruption to return the assets. Moreover, thanks to decades of misrule, living condition for the average Uzbek remain dismal at best.  Money for everything from basic education and health programs to investment in public works is desparately needed.

Uzbek civil society now offers a solution to the Swiss dilemma.  Acknowledging the reformist leanings of the current government, and wanting to encourage them, civil society proposes that the Swiss government return the funds in tranches.  The return would be keyed to progress in realizing the kinds of reforms the government says it is committed to making.   Internationally recognized measures would be used to gauge progress.

A phased, conditioned return has two advantages.  It offers those in the Uzbek government leverage to persuade reluctant colleagues of the need for change.  At the same time, a phased return avoids swamping the government with a massive amount of money its primitive public financial system simply couldn’t manage responsibly.

The proposal appears in a letter to Swiss authorities authored by prominent Uzbek citizen, both those who have had to flee the country to escape political repression and those (anonymously) who remain.  The English version is here; a Russian version here.  A commentary on the proposal in the Swiss press is here, and background on the circumstance the led to the theft is here.

Can Blockchain Help Bypass the Problem of Corruption in Development Aid?

Posted on by
Reply

Corruption undermines the effectiveness of foreign aid. While precise numbers are hard to come by, numerous press reports suggest that mass “leakages” (a euphemism for probable theft) are all too common. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has reportedly asserted that approximately 30% of foreign aid is lost to corruption, though controversy over the magnitude and impact of the problem remains (see, for example, here, here, and here). The perception of a severe problem has naturally led to searches for innovative solutions, including technological solutions. One possibility that has been garnering some recent attention is blockchain technology. In fact, a few months ago, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, the think tank Sustainia, and the blockchain currency platform Coinify jointly published a report delineating how blockchain technology can be used to “hack the future of development aid.”

Blockchain systems make use of a shared digital “ledger,” in which each transaction contains the history of all previous transactions; because the ledger is transparent and distributed across many computers, rather than stored in a centralized database, it is (allegedly) not susceptible to manipulation or hacking, and ensures the transparency of all transactions (though not necessarily the real-world identities of those engaged in those transactions). Blockchain is probably best known as the technology that makes possible Bitcoin and other so-called cryptocurrencies. But blockchain technology and its applications are rapidly evolving, and many have already begun to see how this technology can be used as a tool to combat corruption, for example by increasing transparency in land records and by using blockchain systems to support anti-money laundering efforts. Now, companies such as Disberse, AID: Tech, and Donorcoin are developing blockchain-based fund management systems that, their proponents contend, can help reduce corruption in development aid. Blockchain technology would allow donors to transfer money to end users directly (and instantaneously), bypassing the formal financial institutions and corrupt bureaucracies that have often been the source of financial leakage, and preserving a transparent record of all transactions. This would help ensure that aid money goes to where it is intended to go.

Continue reading →

Will Brazilians Elect Their Own Donald Trump?

Posted on by
2

Will Brazil get its own Donald Trump? Brazil’s next election is right around the corner (the campaign starts August 16, and first round elections are October 2) but currently Jair Bolsonaro—a right wing, pro-gun rights, anti-gay firebrand who has proudly branded himself the “next Donald Trump”—is polling first among eligible candidates, trailing only former president Lula Inácio de Silva—who as of now is not actually allowed to run due to his conviction on corruption charges—and the “null option” (that is, none-of-the-above). What explains Bolsonaro’s appeal? In large part, the issue of corruption. Revelations of graft and bribery have continued to pile up in Brazil over the last few years—most notably (though not exclusively) in connection with the so-called Car Wash investigation of corruption in Brazil’s state-owned oil company, which may have involved upwards of $5 billion in stolen public funds. These corruption scandals have already led to the impeachment and removal of former President Dilma Rousseff, criminal charges against the current President Michel Temer, and the conviction and imprisonment of former President Lula. Given all this, it’s little wonder that in a recent poll, corruption was ranked as the most important issue for 62% of Brazilian citizens.

Much as Donald Trump pledged to “drain the swamp,” Bolsonaro has centered his campaign on the issue of corruption. He asserts that he is the only candidate in the election who has not engaged in some form of corruption or white collar crime. Of the five major presidential candidates, he’s the only one who is not either from a major party that has been mired in a recent corruption scandal, or been part of a coalition with one of those tainted parties. (Bolsonaro’s party, the PSL (Social Liberal Party) is small, barely present at the national level, and he is advertising his status as a political outsider as one of his appeals.) Thus Bolsonaro has presented himself as the only candidate who will usher in a new, less corrupt era for Brazil.

This places some Brazilian voters who care deeply about corruption in a difficult situation. Many Brazilians may feel like their only alternative to perpetuating a corrupt system is to take a gamble on a disruptive figure like Bolsonaro. Indeed, at a recent campaign event, supporters cited his aggressive anticorruption and anti-crime stances as the principal reasons why they were planning to vote for him. Diehard supporters aside, it’s possible that some Brazilian voters who are not totally comfortable with Bolsonaro might nevertheless be swayed by his outsider persona and his aggressive attacks on Brazil’s current political class. For those who have followed U.S. politics over the past few years, this probably sounds disturbingly familiar—and indeed seems to fit into a now-recognizable pattern, also manifested in the Philippines’ 2016 election of populist, zero-tolerance Duterte. It’s precisely that similarity that should, and I hope will, give these on-the-fence Brazilian voters pause. Continue reading →

Government Donors Should Demand More Accountability and Integrity from International Aid Charities

Posted on by
1

Oxfam, the international aid organization with more than 10,000 staff worldwide and many hundreds of millions of dollars of income from donations alone, has been getting a lot of bad press recently. Many readers will likely be familiar with the Oxfam sex scandal, wherein Oxfam workers in Haiti had sex with victims of the 2010 earthquake, perhaps including child victims. In 2014, Oxfam’s former antifraud chief was arrested for embezzlement. And last February, the chairman of Oxfam International, Juan Alberto Fuentes, was arrested in Guatemala for his role in a corruption scandal that developed over his time as the finance minister of Guatemala. Although the arrest of Mr. Fuentes was for conduct that predated his work at Oxfam, the arrest sparked further questions about corruption and accountability in the organization, and called into question the reliability and credibility of Oxfam’s anticorruption advocacy work.

Of course, both sex scandals and corruption scandals happen in other organizations too, including governments and for-profit corporations. So far as I know, there’s no evidence that aid organizations are systematically more prone to such institutional failures than other entities. Yet these scandals feel particularly disturbing when they occur at an organization like Oxfam, perhaps because we implicitly hold do-gooder NGOs to a higher ethical standard. And in fact we should: both the legitimacy and effectiveness of the international work done by NGOs like Oxfam rests, at least to some degree, on some sense that these organizations have the moral authority to enter a country and change the way things are run. To retain that moral authority, aid organizations must take extra steps to ensure they remain above suspicion. The failure of the Oxfam board to conduct due diligence on Fuentes is a strike against Oxfam’s credibility, and this fundamentally hurts its mission.

The question is what Oxfam, or similar organizations, can do to increase the chances of meeting these high standards, and avoid similarly embarrassing scandals in the future. My answer: Oxfam should tie its own hands and mandate top-down, independent integrity oversight, supervised by donating governments.

Continue reading →

“Corruption Proofing” Statutes and Regulations: The Next Big Thing in Anticorruption Strategy?

Posted on by
3

So-called “corruption proofing” is an ex ante preventive measure that entails review of the form and substance of legal acts (principally statutes or regulations) in order to minimize the risk of future corruption. It is a relatively new strategy in the anticorruption toolkit. As of 2015, 13 countries had enacted some form of corruption proofing: Armenia, Albania, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

While there is some divergence between each country’s specific practices, generally a corruption proofing system requires that draft and/or existing legal acts (statutes and regulations) are subjected to a review process by a designated institution (or institutions), which are tasked with identifying “corruptogenic factors”—aspects of those laws that might create risks of future corruption. Examples of corruptogenic factors that corruption proofing systems have identified include unclear definitions of the rights and duties of public officials; broad discretionary power; over-broad freedom to enact by-laws and other subsidiary legislation; linguistic ambiguity; inadequate sanctions; lack of (or conflicting) regulatory and administrative procedures; and disproportionate burdens on citizens to exercise their rights. The reviewing institution then makes recommendations for changes to the law that would mitigate those risks. The governmental body from which the legal acts originate (the parliament, in the case of statutes) is obligated to consider these recommendations but is not required to implement them, though in some systems the governmental body must state its reasons for rejecting the reviewing institution’s recommendations. Another common practice is that the proofing agency’s recommendations (and, if applicable, the explanations for why they were disregarded) are circulated as an annex to the draft law being debated in the legislature and are also published online, thus providing both lawmakers and citizens with more information about the potential corruptogenic factors associated with the law. Continue reading →

India and Ireland Enact Anticorruption Compliance Program Laws

Posted on by
2

Legislation just approved in both Ireland and India create a powerful incentive for businesses to establish anticorruption compliance programs.  Both give firms a defense to criminal charges if one of their employees or agents is caught paying a bribe. Section 18 of the Irish Criminal Justice (Corruption Offences) Act 2018 provides that a “body corporate” can avoid liability if it can prove that “it took all reasonable steps and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of the offence.”  Under section 9 of India’s Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill 2018, a “commercial organization” escapes liability if it proves it “had in place adequate procedures in compliance of such guidelines as may be prescribed [by the Attorney General] to prevent persons associated with it from undertaking such conduct.”

The compliance provisions differ, as the quoted language shows, in two respects.  India imposes liability on any “commercial organization,” which includes not only corporations but partnerships and business associations “of any kind,” whereas the Irish law is limited to corporations alone.  Second, while the Irish Minister for Justice and Equality has the discretion to issue guidance on what constitutes “all reasonable steps” and “all due diligence” to prevent employee bribery, the Indian Central Government must, “in consultation with the concerned stakeholders . . .  prescribe such guidelines as may be considered necessary which can be put in place for compliance by [commercial] organizations.”

The Indian requirement follows a report of the Indian Law Commission on an earlier version of the bill.  Noting the “immediate and significant impact” the bill would have on corporations, particularly smaller ones, and that both the U.K. Bribery Act and the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act require law enforcement authorities to issue compliance guidance, the Commission recommended that the liability provision cum compliance defense be effective only once the Central Government published guidance on what was expected of companies wanting to assert a compliance defense.  An earlier post noted the burgeoning literature on compliance programs by governments, international organizations, and commentators alike evidences a broad consensus on what constitutes an effective compliance program.  Hence in practice the requirement shouldn’t lead to any real difference between what will be required under Indian law and what other nations with a compliance law already require.

The Nations with Anticorruption Compliance Laws table shows Ireland and India are now the fourteenth and fifteenth nations to enact legislation creating a defense to a criminal charge for businesses that have a compliance program.  (Readers are asked to submit a comment if I missed any country.)  With the six countries plus Quebec that require certain firms to have a compliance program, and with the United States, which both tempers corporate liability for firms with an “effective” compliance program and requires those winning public contracts of any appreciable size or duration to have one, the number of jurisdictions with some type of compliance program law now stands at 23.

What are the other 163 parties to UNCAC waiting for?  Why aren’t they enlisting their private sector in the fight against corruption?  Do they really think they can win the fight on their own?