Bribery and Corruption

COVID-19 has disrupted everything – supply chains, the market, how we work and how we interact with each other. For compliance teams, flexibility and adaptation are key to ensuring that you are on hand for your business to guarantee that it is making the best possible decisions when under pressure.

Glencore (GLEN) announced after market close on Friday that it is facing a criminal investigation from Swiss Attorney General regarding a “failure to have the organizational measures in place to prevent alleged corruption in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)”.

The investigation was launched in 2019 into De La Rue’s business operations in South Sudan, where it had a contract to print the country’s currency.

Two of the UK’s largest suppliers of roofing lead have admitted to taking part in anti-competitive arrangements and could face fines of more than £11m.

A South Korean court is expected to rule today on whether to arrest Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee on new allegations including accounting fraud and stock manipulation, two years after completing his last jail sentence.

https://www.cityam.com/decision-looms-on-second-arrest-of-samsung-boss-on-fraud-allegations/

LONDON (Reuters) - The UK Serious Fraud Office has closed a three-year bribery and corruption investigation into the British subsidiaries of Swiss engineering company ABB, it said on Tuesday.

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/britains-fraud-office-closes-investigation-085700405.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw

As countries face undeniable emergencies, concentration of powers, derogations from fundamental rights and freedoms, and as large amounts of money are infused into the economy to alleviate the crisis (now and in the near future), corruption risks should not be underestimated. It is therefore most important that anti-corruption is streamlined in all COVID-19, and more generally, pandemic-related processes.  

https://rm.coe.int/corruption-risks-and-useful-legal-references-in-the-context-of-covid-1/16809e33e1

Anti-corruption agency has stopped handling paper documents and seized devices

Businesses are likely to face challenges in untangling themselves from temporary cooperation arrangements set up to ensure the manufacturing and supply of essential goods and services during the coronavirus crisis.

https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/analysis/coronavirus-competition-law-after-lockdown

ZURICH (Reuters) - World soccer body FIFA said the expiry without a verdict of a fraud trial in Switzerland over a payment linked to the 2006 World Cup was worrying for the sport and the Swiss justice system.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-soccer-fifa-trial/fifa-says-2006-world-cup-fraud-trial-expiry-worrying-for-swiss-justice-system-idUKKCN22B0PH