- FCPAméricas - http://fcpamericas.com -

OECD Survey on Business Integrity and Corporate Governance

OECD2 [1]The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is conducting a Survey on Business Integrity and Corporate Governance as part of a new initiative called the OECD Trust and Business (TNB) Project [2]. The newly initiated TNB Project is working with governments, business, and civil society to promote a discussion about the effective integration of business integrity considerations into a company’s decision making.

The Project approaches this challenge by focusing on the roles and responsibilities of the board and executive management (as defined in the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance [3]) in ensuring their companies are able to mitigate the risk of engaging in, or being used for, serious corporate misconduct. The OECD’s overall aim is to explore ways in which the OECD can promote business integrity by encouraging heightened standards for businesses, including OECD standards for promoting responsible business conduct [4], OECD standards on cartels and bid-rigging in public procurement [5], and preventing bribery, namely the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention [6].

Readers of this blog post are encouraged to participate in this initiative by:

Completing the OECD Trust and Business Survey on Business Integrity & Corporate Governance, available on the OECD Trust and Business Project website here [2]. Completion of the survey is estimated to take approximately 10-15 minutes. Some questions may require additional time to obtain the information requested. The survey is anonymous and all questions are optional other than the few that are marked with a red asterisk. The OECD asks that companies consider completing the survey by the end of March 2015.

Attending the Integrity Forum Session on the Trust and Business Project, 25 March, 16:30 – 18:00 at the OECD in Paris. The TNB Project session during the OECD’s annual Integrity Forum [7] is the first public consultation on the Project. Registration for this session provides access to all Forum events on 25-26 March, and participation is free. Registrations can be made by clicking on the online registration form [7] on the Integrity Forum website, indicating your preference for the TNB Session.

Agreeing to an interview and/or case study with a member of your board, executive management, or representatives tasked with implementing your company’s business integrity program. Interviews and case studies will focus on the role of the board and/or executive management in their ability to effectively implement, manage, and oversee their enterprise’s business integrity policy and risk management measures to prevent the company from engaging in, or being used for serious corporate misconduct. Interviews and case studies can be anonymous, and input can be provided orally, if preferred. Contributors will also have the opportunity to review all inputs prior to finalization of OECD’s paper later this spring. Interviews and case studies should be completed by end-April 2015 to allow time to verify inputs with contributing organizations prior to finalization of the OECD TNB Project fact-finding issues paper in June 2015.

Spreading the word. Please feel free to pass information about this project to colleagues in your professional associations, networks, and business chains, and encourage them to join the TNB Project discussion in the aforementioned ways.

Inputs in these areas will contribute to an initial TNB Project fact-finding issues paper focusing on corporate governance challenges and good practices, expected in June 2015. Specifically, the paper aims to illustrate the current state of business integrity challenges and practices from a large sample of companies and, second, to suggest how a company’s corporate governance frameworks and business integrity programs can help prevent a corporation from being used for, or engaging in, serious corporate misconduct. The findings of this paper will provide the foundation for a broader discussion as to how the Project could be brought forward.

The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author in his or her individual capacity, and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone else, including the entities with which the author is affiliated, the author`s employers, other contributors, FCPAméricas, or its advertisers. The information in the FCPAméricas blog is intended for public discussion and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide legal advice to its readers and does not create an attorney-client relationship. It does not seek to describe or convey the quality of legal services. FCPAméricas encourages readers to seek qualified legal counsel regarding anti-corruption laws or any other legal issue. FCPAméricas gives permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author and to FCPAméricas LLC.

© 2015 FCPAméricas, LLC