Thailand urged to join anti-bribery convention

“The G-20 [Group of 20] has repeatedly recommended that all G-20 states adhere to the OECD [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development] Anti-Bribery Convention. China, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia have not yet done so. In view of their growing role in international business, they should do so promptly. 

“We also encourage Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand to join the convention,” the anti-corruption organisation said in its annual report released this week.

The four countries with active enforcement of the rules in regard to corruption by public officials are Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States and Switzerland, which control 26.2 per cent of the world’s exports. 

Italy, Australia, Austria and Finland – with 6.1 per cent of global exports – are rated by TI as signatories with moderate enforcement. 

For a country to be classified in the “active” or “moderate” enforcement categories, at least one major case needs to have been commenced or concluded in the past four years.

The remaining 30 countries – accounting for 28.2 per cent of world exports – are those with “limited or little” enforcement, according to TI’s report on the enforcement of rules on foreign bribery. 

The OECD convention targets officials who have committed any forms of bribery in order to increase exports from their countries.

Under the Anti-Bribery Convention, adopted in 1997, each signatory country is required to make foreign bribery a crime for which individuals and enterprises are responsible. 

The annual report on foreign-bribery enforcement presents an independent assessment on the status of enforcement in all of the 40 parties to the convention, including Russia, where the convention entered force in 2012, and Colombia, which came on board this year.

“Getting lagging governments to meet their commitments should be a top priority. The challenge ahead is to build political support in the countries with lagging enforcement, and also to prevent weakening of support in countries where there is enforcement,” TI said in the report.

A country report from Australia stated that the former managing director of the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) had admitted in August last year to negligence in the performance of his director duties, and was fined 100,000 Australian dollars (about Bt3 million). He was also disqualified from managing a corporation for two years by Victoria state’s Supreme Court for breaching the Corporations Act.

This was in connection with reported payments of nearly US$300 million (Bt9.4 billion) to the Iraqi government under the administration of Saddam Hussein, in connection with the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme.

After the Australian Securities and Investment Commission’s civil actions against senior executives of the AWB in April 2010, the commission also won an appeal in March this year to increase the sanctions for one of the four other executives also accused of bribery.

The executive admitted in June 2012 to having contravened the Corporations Act by failing to act upon available information to investigate the possible payment of fees to the Iraqi government, and as such, the penalty was increased from a A$10,000 fine and four-and-a-half-month disqualification from managing corporations to a A$40,000 fine and a 15-month disqualification.

The actions for alleged breaches of director duties against the other four executives are still pending.

Since 2009, some 22 investigations have been initiated, with three in that year, four in the following, five in 2011 and 10 last year. None of those investigations led to prosecutions in 2012 and seven were dropped. 

Among the ongoing investigations is one involving Leighton Holdings, which self-reported suspected improper payments in Iraq, and possibly in Indonesia. 

According to the OECD Working Group on Bribery’s “Phase 3 Report on Implementing the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention”, an Australian company self-reported in June last year possible improper payments made by a foreign subsidiary. 

The alleged payments were to facilitate a wharf construction understood to be in southern Iraq.