CAAT and The Corner House
On 18 December 2006, The Corner House and Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) began a legal challenge to the decision by the UK's Serious Fraud Office to drop the investigation into bribery allegations involving BAE Systems Plc in Saudi Arabia.
How Rich Country Export Credit Agencies Facilitate Corruption in the Global South
The Corner House
The Corner House interviewed by the US magazine, Multinational Monitor, on export credit agencies and corruption.
The evidence so far from the OECD Working Group on Bribery Phase 2 reviews
Susan Hawley for ECA-Watch
The OECD's Working Group on Bribery regard export credit agencies (ECAs) as essential to combating bribery and believe that ECA procedures to do so could be significantly improved. The Group's reviews of various OECD countries emphasise the importance of ECAs having proper procedures in place to detect and report bribery suspicions to law enforcement agencies, and to exclude companies convicted of corruption from further export credit support.
Its comments and recommendations on public procurement and bribery of foreign officials
Susan Hawley
The OECD Working Group on Bribery's reviews of how countries are implementing the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention are an invaluable source of information about practice in different countries in combating bribery. This paper pulls together all the Group's comments and recommendations about public procurement, and summarises the procedures countries have developed to exclude companies convicted of bribery from public procurement.
Susan Hawley
There need to be considerable improvements to the UK's enforcement regime to combat corruption and money laundering. Laws on non tax-deductibility of bribes are not being adequately enforced. The UK government should take further measures to raise awareness of bribery; introduce preventative measures and new corruption legislation; and establish a fair and workable debarment system.
Susan Hawley
Northern institutions have a significant impact on corruption in developing countries, particularly in the form of bribery by Northern companies and money laundering by Northern banks of the proceeds of corruption. Northern states have been directly and indirectly complicit in these activities, primarily by turning a blind eye and failing to take action. If corruption is be tackled internationally, the Northern state itself needs to be redesigned.
Dr Susan Hawley
On 21 October 2005, the ECGD announced several proposed changes to its anti-corruption procedures. This document outlines The Corner House's concerns about these proposals, particularly the weak audit clause and the non-requirement to supply the identity of agents.
The Corner House
On 21st October 2005, the ECGD announced its provisional response to the public consultation on its anti-corruption procedures. The ECGD proposes to take some steps towards re-strengthening its procedures, but has still stopped short in some key areas.
A historic opportunity
ECA-Watch
This submission to the OECD Working Group on Export Credits and Credit Guarantees argues that a strong new OECD Action Statement on Combating Bribery in Officially Supported Export Credits should be agreed in October 2005 and recomends key anti-bribery measures to be incorporated into it.
Dr Susan Hawley
This document outlines ways in which the UK Government can implement a new EU Procurement Directive requiring Member States to exclude companies and individuals convicted of corruption from being awarded public procurement contracts.
The Corner House and others
In June 2005, several trade unions and NGOs signed a joint statement calling on the UK government to take immediate steps to meet its international obligations on corruption by taking 12 detailed actions.
The Agenda for 2005
Dr Susan Hawley
This submission to the EU Council Working Group on Trade details how the OECD Action Statement on Combating Bribery in Officially Supported Export Credits should be strengthened and how European Export Credit Agencies should improve their anti-bribery procedures. It was prepared for a special meeting held between the EU Council Working Group on Export Credits and NGOs on 22 June 2005.
Dr Susan Hawley
In January 2005, the UK's export credit agency, ECGD, announced a public consultation into its weakened anti-corruption procedures, introduced following industry lobbying. This submission to that consultation argues that the ECGD should revert to its revised procedures if it is to prevent bribery in the projects that it supports.
A Legal Opinion
Lord Lester and Ben Jaffey
This Legal Opinion examines the legal powers of the UK's export credit agency, the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD), to blacklist companies involved in bribery and corruption. It argues that ECGD would be perfectly entitled to have a firm policy of refusing to provide financial support to companies that have previously engaged in bribery or corruption, provided that it also considered the exceptional circumstances of any particular case on its merits.
Dr Susan Hawley
In March 2005, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published an extensive review of how the UK is implementing the OECD's Anti-Bribery Convention. This document analyses the review's main findings.
Memorandum from The Corner House
Dr Susan Hawley
At the beginning of 2005, the UK Parliament's Trade and Industry Select Committee conducted an inquiry into the UK's Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD). During its inquiry, it interviewed the Government Minister responsible for the ECGD about the Department's watering down of its anti-bribery procedures following industry lobbying. In March 2005, the Committee published a report, Implementation of ECGD's Business Principles, that was highly critical of the changes the Department had made to its procedures. This document is The Corner House's submission to the Committee's inquiry.
The Corner House
In December 2004, The Corner House began legal proceedings against the Export Credits Guarantee Department, claiming it had weakened its anti-corruption rules after consulting corporations only. It was awarded the first-ever full "protective costs order" to challenge the changed rules: The Corner House would not have to pay the Department's legal costs, even if it lost, because the challenge was in the public interest.
In December 2004, The Corner House instituted legal proceedings against the UK's Secretary of State for Trade and Industry as the government minister responsible for the Export Credits Guarantee Department.
Tales From the New Mozambique
Joseph Hanlon
Northern aid donors demand that Southern countries tackle corruption, but continue to require them to implement economic liberalisation policies that increase corruption. In Mozambique, corruption has grown to high levels because of increasing intervention by international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, and bilateral aid donors in support of liberalisation, facilitated by tacit alliances between donors and a section of the Mozambican elite.
Towards a model for excellence: A discussion paper
Dr Susan Hawley
Enforcement of overseas corruption offences involving British companies and individuals under the UK's anti-corruption legislation is crucial to tackling corruption internationally. The current arrangements in the UK between various law enforcement agencies are not the most effective means of ensuring that these offences are investigated and prosecuted. A more pro-active enforcement regime could detect overseas corruption offences as and when they occur and could act on credible suspicions of bribery.
Export Credit Agencies and Corruption
Susan Hawley
The taxpayer-backed export credit agencies of industrialised countries are underwriting the bribery and corruption of large, mainly Western, companies operating abroad.
Lessons from the New Thailand
Dr Pasuk Phongpaichit
Corruption in Thailand has been neither pervasive nor incompatible with economic growth. It is centred on a big business-politics complex whose rise has gone hand-in-hand with globalisation.
Corruption and the UK Export Credits Guarantee Department
Dr Susan Hawley
Institutional practices within the taxpayer-funded UK Export Credits Guarantee Department have exacerbated bribery and corruption by Western companies.
(Or, rather: What went Right? For Whom?)
Nicholas Hildyard
In July 2000, 19 corporations and individuals were being prosecuted in the Lesotho courts for bribing a top official in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (a scheme intended to divert water from Lesotho to South Africa). This presentation explores the daily institutional practices that actively encourage the flouting of guidelines and anti-corruption regulations. It sheds light on the institutionalised racism that assumes the Third World to be inherently corrupt and corruptible, a view that underwrites bribery.
The ECGD's recent record
Susan Hawley, The Corner House
The UK Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) has a long record of backing corrupt projects. New vetting procedures have loopholes, leaving the ECGD open to charges of complicity in corruption, contends this presentation at an NGO Seminar on Export Credit Reform held in the House of Commons, London.
Recommendations to the UK Export Credits Guarantee Agency
Kirstine Drew, UNICORN, Public Services International Research Unit
The UK Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) has a legal obligation to combat corruption. But its failure to adopt non-discretionary, transparent procedures is fundamentally flawed, argues this presentation at an NGO Seminar on Export Credit Reform held in the House of Commons, London.
Britain's Role in Promoting Corruption, Cronyism and Graft
The Corner House
This Corner House submission to British House of Commons' International Development Committee's Inquiry into corruption urges the Committee to examine the structural causes of corruption in the countries of the South, such as the policies and programmes that Western governments and agencies push on these countries. It recommends that the Committee focus less on the perceived "lack of political will" to tackle corruption and more on those vested interests that generate immense political will to block investigations when they are initiated and to undermine anti-corruption drives.
Privatisation, Multinationals and Bribery
Susan Hawley
Growing corrpution throughout the world has resulted from the rapid privatisation of public enterprises. Multinationals, supported by Western governments and their agencies, are engaging in corruption on a vast scale in North and South alike. Donor governments and multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund frequently put forward ‘good governance’ agendas to combat corruption, but their other actions send different signals about where their priorites lie.
