IBA reveals client perspective on Anti-corruption with new report

One of the significant highlights of the Boston conference, was the release and launch of the IBA report on, ‘Anti-Corruption Compliance and the Legal Profession: The Client Perspective’ – a report, which highlights the role of clients in the fight against corruption, with specific reference to compliance among legal professionals.

In the report, based on a global survey of in-house legal and compliance officers; conducted with more than 60 representatives from companies on five continents, respondents noted that lawyers still pose relevant integrity risks that need to be addressed.

More than 60 per cent of these respondents, expressed concern for the relationship legal professionals develop with the judiciary while a similar proportion extend this concern to a broader group of public authorities. It was due to these acknowledged risks that companies have gone ahead to put stricter compliance practices and measures in place

The IBA president, Michael Reynolds who was at the launch of the Report, noted that the new Report was part of IBA’s commitment to keep anti-corruption as one of its primary focus.

“Corruption is something which affects us all and the consequences can be significant,” he said. “This Report is part of the Anti-Corruption Strategy for the Legal Profession (Strategy), carried out in partnership with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

“Through partnering with the OECD and UNODC we will continue to bear greater focus on the role of lawyers in tackling corruption in international business.’ He added,

He noted the awareness across the globe, with a growing number of law firms, bar associations, governments and private sector players, supporting the IBA’s anti-corruption work.

Urging more practitioners to join the anti-corruption campaign, IBA Anti-Corruption Committee Co-Chair, Tim Dickinson said, ‘Lawyers need to realise that anti-corruption compliance is not only a regulatory requirement but also a demand and an expectation from clients. Legal practitioners, regardless of the size of their firm or their location, will need to understand the integrity frameworks their clients have designed and adapt their own compliance systems and integrity mechanisms accordingly. Law firms that fail to adjust to this business environment will face difficulties to comply with client requirements and compete in a world of companies with a greater appetite for clean and transparent business practices.’

In the following months to come, a series of Strategy workshops and awareness-raising activities, based on this report are expected to take place in Nigeria, Thailand and Vietnam.

At the conference which opened on Sunday October 6th and ended on Thursday 10th, a host of global issues were covered in over 222 working sessions, touching on all aspects of international law.

Topics discussed, include, ‘the tension between privacy and free expression in social media, the media and criminality, tax abuses, sovereign debt, anti-corruption enforcement, illegal immigration, climate change justice, human trafficking, globalisation, access to justice for women, the BRICS economies, drones, corporate disasters, the shifting global energy landscape, and the challenges for human rights law 65 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The IBA conference is the largest annual gathering of lawyers from all over the world, and this year’s event was attended by over 5,000 delegates from 134 countries.

IBA conference highlight continues….

To assess the decision to award the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to the EU, participants at a session titled, “The Nobel for Europe – a prize for peace and reconstruction or a recipe for economic meltdown and disintegration?” established that regulatory efforts to clean up global banks must work within the current system and not seek to break up good banks from bad.

They also agreed that while the causes of the financial crisis in the US and Europe were similar, each requires different solutions for past mistakes, noting further, that the establishment of an EU banking union will form a critical part of the survival of the euro itself.