Transparency International deplores the United Kingdom's failure to comply with OECD anti-bribery convention

Wednesday, 29 October 2008

Resolution passed by the Transparency International movement at the international Annual Members Meeting in Athens on October 29th 2008

We, the participants of the Transparency International Annual Members Meeting held in Athens, Greece on 28-29 October 2008, deplore the serial failure of the United Kingdom to comply with its international obligations under the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.

We note the severe criticism of the United Kingdom set out in the Report on the application of the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (United Kingdom: Phase 2bis), approved and adopted by the Working Group on Bribery on 16 October 2008.  We note that the United Kingdom has offered no valid excuse for its conduct nor any reason why it has failed repeatedly to meet promises and assurances it has made to the Working Group for the past nine years.

The United Kingdom's conduct threatens the integrity of the Convention as one of the most important instruments to tackle and eliminate supply-side corruption. States in breach of their international obligations should be held to public account for so doing, and the United Kingdom is no exception.

We call upon the United Kingdom, given its past contributions to the international legal order, to act decisively to implement precisely the recommendations of the Working Group in its report, without delay. We also call upon other States Parties to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention to maintain pressure on the United Kingdom to do so.

2008 Annual Membership Meeting
Transparency International

29 October 2008
Athens, Greece

Notes to the editor

Transparency International (UK)  www.transparency.org.uk

Transparency International (UK) is the National Chapter of the global anti-corruption non-governmental organisation, Transparency International (TI). TI, which is co-ordinated by an international secretariat in Berlin, is a coalition of more than 90 autonomous national chapters who are committed to fighting corruption using transparency as a major tool. TI is dedicated to combating corruption at the national and international levels through constructive partnerships with governments, the private sector, civil society and international organisations.

TI(UK)'s vision is for a world in which government, politics, business, civil society, domestic and international institutions and the daily lives of people are freed from corruption, and in which the UK neither tolerates corruption within its own society and economy, nor contributes to overseas corruption through its international financial, trade and other business relations.

OECD Working Group on Bribery

Foreign bribery cases (and investigations) include all cases involving bribery of foreign public officials, criminal and civil, whether brought under laws dealing with corruption, money laundering, tax evasion, fraud, or false accounting.

http://www.oecd.org/document/5/0,3343,en_2649_34859_35430021_1_1_1_1,00.html