Solution
Bribery & Corruption
Along with other forms of white-collar crime such as fraud, bribery and corruption pose a serious threat to businesses everywhere in terms of financial and reputational damage. An EU commissioned Special Eurobarometer on Corruption found that over two-thirds of Europeans think that corruption is widespread and a similar percentage do not think corruption has not been tackled sufficiently by their business.
Worryingly, over eight in ten respondents (81%) said that they did not report corruption that they witnessed or experienced to anyone.
Of the challenges revealed in the report, the stand out one is that less than half of all respondents would know where to report corruption within their organization. Furthermore, the main disincentives to reporting are the absence of consequences on the perpetrators and the lack of protection for those who report. Around one in three think reporting is pointless because those responsible won’t be punished and a similar number are concerned that there is no protection against retaliation.
Vault Platform: Your solution for Bribery & Corruption
Coupled with strong anti-corruption programs and ethical guidelines, a modern incident resolution system can reduce the incidents of unwelcome behavior and the associated legal risks. Catching misconduct before regulators do helps companies avoid bad publicity and costly fines. For CEO’s, the ability to spot and remove problematic employees can help improve the company’s productivity and staff retention.
Vault Platform is complimented by an enterprise-grade Resolution Hub for companies that helps companies catch problems early without involving external entities.
Open Reporting extends the capabilities of Vault Platform to your entire business ecosystem including suppliers and customers.
The changing face of corruption
Bribery and corruption risks are often elevated in times of crisis and through 2020 it has been noted that the risk of misconduct has changed and in some cases increased as employees work from home with less oversight. Business priorities have shifted, and emergency measures or snap decisions have been made. The increased pressure from the pandemic also means people are vulnerable to making wrong or risky decisions.
Bribery and corruption are illegal through laws such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the US, and companies must remain aware of these issues not just directly within their organization but within their supply chains and wider ecosystem. Bribery allegations could see a business not just hit with severe sanctions but by significant reputational damage.
Bribery
Means giving or receiving a reward to influence someone’s behavior, sometimes known as a “kickback”.
Corruption
Is improper behavior that seeks to gain an advantage, such as, but not limited to bribery, abuse of power, extortion, fraud, deception, collusion, cartels, embezzlement or money laundering.
Facilitation Payments
Are often seen under the guise of ‘local customs’ and are sums of money paid to officials to speed up or “facilitate” activities they should perform anyway. Many company policies will treat such payments as bribes.
Gifts, entertainment and hospitality
Although not prohibited under national legislation such as the UK’s Bribery Act, this is an area that can cause significant difficulty in business circles. Many company policies put caps on what employees can accept in terms of gifts, entertainment and hospitality and may require employees to declare even low-value gifts.
Supply chains
Can pose a significant risk. If there are new third parties or government actors in foreign jurisdictions, ensure you take the necessary precautions and don’t skip due diligence responsibilities. If, for example, a third party is introduced into your supply chain or if you decide to outsource, ensure you follow up with appropriate checks and balances.
Any well-meaning institution must strive to maintain a positive reputation for fair dealings and tight controls and occasionally, bad things happen. However, the presence (or even lack) of an antiquated system for employees to report misconduct and abuse within the organization means that the systems are either not used or are not effective in alerting relevant stakeholders.
how Vault Platform helps your company eliminate bribery & corruption
Remove disincentives to reporting by demonstrating consequences for the perpetrators and protection for those who report
The Vault App is highly accessible and always available, engaging the 50% of workers who do not know where to raise their concerns
Vault Platform helps businesses create a robust internal reporting process that demonstrates corruption will not be tolerated
OUR PRODUCTS
Reveal and resolve
misconduct in your workplace
Security
A trust platform with
security at the core
Vault Platform’s core application is to facilitate trust between companies and their people and to help to create working environments that are inclusive, diverse, productive and safe. This is why we consider security and data privacy to be critical components of our platform and why both are at the foundation of everything we do.
Vault Platform is ISO 27001 certified and GDPR compliant
Data encryption in transit and at rest: TLS and AES-256 technology protects your information
Servers located in the EU and UK, in AWS data centres that are ISO 27001, SOC 1 and SOC 2 certified