OECD Says Brexit Will Impair UK Corruption Fighting Efforts

March 23, 2017 Share Print 0

Brexit could damage the UK’s efforts to tackle corruption and give multinationals leverage over the British government in bribery cases, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned.

Business pressure to weaken bribery laws and an inability by the government to focus on non-Brexit issues are both risks associated with leaving the European Union, according to a new report by the group.

While acknowledging the UK’s “solid progress” in pursuing recent bribery investigations, the report warned that the proportion of cases relative to the country’s importance in global finance was low.

“Efforts must be sustained to improve detection of foreign bribery and achieve stronger enforcement of its anti-bribery legislation,” it said.

The report praises the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) for recent successes in pursuing major corruption cases, including a multimillion-pound settlement with the engineering giant Rolls-Royce earlier this year.

However, several civil society groups told the report’s authors they were concerned that “Brexit could increase the risk of UK companies threatening to relocate and potential loss of UK jobs as a bargaining chip in negotiations with prosecutors over charges”.

via The Guardian

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.