Anti-Corruption Group On Territories

Prime Minister David Cameron [pictured] must crack down on British banks and companies which play a role in fuelling and facilitating corruption both in the UK and in Overseas Territories including Bermuda, an anti-corruption group said on Friday [Dec.9].

A report by the Bond anti-corruption group, whose members include Tearfund and Christian Aid, praised the UK for having a sound legal framework but concluded that not enough action has been taken against lawyers, bankers and accountants who handle corrupt transactions, with very few attempts to prosecute facilitators of corruption.

The report, released on International Anti-Corruption Day, pointed to the devastating effects of corruption on developing economies, with the cost in Africa alone estimated at $148 billion a year.

Britain signed the United Nations convention against corruption, the most comprehensive global anti-corruption legal instrument, and ratified it in 2006. In addition, the UK Bribery Act, one of the strongest anti-bribery laws worldwide, came into force in July along with new laws against money laundering.

Melissa Lawson, chair of the Bond Anti-Corruption Group and Tearfund policy adviser said: “The failure to act here in the UK when it comes to enforcing bribery laws and tackling dirty money has devastating effects on developing countries, undermining good governance and exacerbating poverty.

“This report shows why the UK must not remain ambivalent when it comes to addressing the real issues in the fight against corruption.”

The British-based Bond group urged the UK to pressure Overseas Territories including Bermuda, Turks and Caicos islands and Gibraltar to publish company registries.

The report notes improvements in the UK’s compliance with some of its commitments under the UN Convention Against Corruption, but identifies a series of weaknesses:

• The Ministry of Justice guidance on the new UK Bribery Act is unclear, creating potential loopholes and confusion for business.
• The Serious Fraud Office has too few resources to ensure the bribery legislation is a real deterrent to stop companies paying huge bribes to foreign governments in return for lucrative contracts.
• According to the Financial Services Authority, 75% of British banks that were surveyed don’t know the source of the funds of their high-risk customers, leaving the UK wide open to corrupt funds.
• The UK fails to exert pressure on secrecy jurisdictions in Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories to publish company registries.

“The laws are there to tackle corruption but there is complacency in the face of growing corruption threats,” says Eric Gutierrez, Senior Governance Adviser at Christian Aid and one of the report’s authors. “The Government’s International Anti-Corruption Champion must instigate an anti-corruption strategy and ensure that there are sufficient resources to tackle this issue.”

The Bond Anti-Corruption Group welcomed the Bribery Act of 2010, but now calls on the UK to:

• Ensure sufficient resources for enforcing the Bribery Act
• Enforce its own anti-money laundering laws to ensure UK banks do not accept corrupt money and facilitate corruption
• Extend the UN Convention Against Corruption and UK Bribery Act to all Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories
• Produce a transparent cross-government anti-corruption strategy

Welcoming the report, British MP Catherine McKinnell — chairman of the newly formed All-Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Corruption said: “International Anti-Corruption Day provides the UK Government with the perfect opportunity to commit to tackling the obstacles identified if Britain is to play its part in addressing international corruption.

“We need a coherent, properly-resourced approach to dealing with this issue, which causes suffering to millions of people in the developing world, and threatens to undermine the important investment the UK makes in international development.”

The full 28-page report appears below, click ‘Fullscreen’ for greater clarity:

#BritishOverseasTerritories #InternationalCrime #UnitedKingdom

Category: All, Business