At last!
The UK Bribery Act is to come into force on 1 July now that the British government has eventually published guidance on how the new law will be applied. Much of the delay has been around the treatment and status of corporate entertainment. Now the Justice Secretary has clarified that no one is going to be stopped “taking clients to Wimbledon or a Grand Prix.” [Read more…]
The British government has just decided to review the UK Bribery Act weeks before it was due to come into force. There has been much talk of concerted lobbying by British companies who worry that the tough provisions of the new act will make compliance more onerous than other anti-corruption legislation around the world.
We should not be surprised that getting this new law over the starting line is proving tricky. [Read more…]
Has Wikileaks told us anything we did not know? I am not sure it has. We are all aware that behind the façade, nations treat each other with suspicion and, at times, outright hostility. That is the essence of the realpolitik of international relations: to treat our friends as enemies and our enemies as friends. And providing it all remains within a tolerable range, nobody much minds.There is also something quite reassuring that behind the ideological battle lines between Israel and many of her neighbours, there is a comforting unanimity of concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Of course, it must be embarrassing that all these anxieties have been so graphically laid out in the media, but so far there have not been any earth-shattering revelations.
One interesting vignette is the remarks attributed to the UK’s Prince Andrew on the subject of corruption. Andrew is Queen Elizabeth’s second son and he has long acted as a trade ambassador for his country. Like his father, he is known to hold trenchant views and it is no great surprise that he seems to regard bribery as an occupational hazard and is alleged to be critical of UK regulators. [Read more…]
If we could see the future, it would be Asian and urban. Since 2008, a majority of the world’s population has been living in a city and by 2050 only a quarter of us will be clinging to life in the countryside. The rise of the mega-city, particularly in India and China, is one of the most exciting but challenging social transformations of our age. By 2025 there will be eleven cities in Asia with populations over twenty million.
The risk consequences are significant. Crime, corruption, chronic poverty and extremism all prosper when rapid urbanisation is not matched by well planned infrastructure and good governance. The population of the world’s slums is growing by 25 million each year. Doing business successfully in these new environments will demand re-thinking all aspects of our business processes; none more so than the management of risk. The consequences of long-term shifts in urbanisation are by no means confined to Asia. But inevitably India, and particularly China, seem to have a near monopoly on jaw-dropping statistics. [Read more…]