Corruption within the Organization: the Importance of Anti-Corruption Compliance

The scandal in FIFA recently is quite a shocking news for the global citizens. The arrests of several senior FIFA officials are linked with the bribery offences. Unfortunately, since many years ago FIFA has faced rumors of corruption; there are indications of racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering. This embarrassing scandal has become a wakeup call especially for organizations anywhere about the importance of anti-corruption compliance.

Even though FIFA indictments stressed on individual defendants, companies need to be more cautious about the possibilities of corruption by employees since companies might be charged for criminal responsibility. This is a valuable lesson for companies; they need to make sure that their employees are complying with anti-corruption legislation already. From the Risk Management & Crisis Response website, Lawrence E. Ritchie and Malcolm Aboud stated that companies are usually most sensitive to anti-corruption risks when dealing with government officials even though they might be legally responsible for private corruption as well.

Companies need to provide themselves a decent anti-corruption compliance programs to prevent bribery and another type of corruption practices by employees at any level. Companies should also be aware of the anti-corruption violations accusation risks on their organizations whenever there are employees involved on illegal practices. The members of management can be charged for illegal activities in the course of business if it is proved that there are anti-corruption violations within the organization. As a proactive response, companies can conduct internal investigations and stay alert to make sure that their interests are secured once their businesses have been subject to regulatory attention.