Tag: Fight against corruption

TCU will be maintained in leniency agreements

MP signed in December speeds up agreements with investigated companies.
TCU Minister ordered the government to clarify the text to the court.

 

The Comptroller General of the Union (CGU) and the Attorney General of the Union delivered explanations on the afternoon of Thursday (14) about the provisional measure of the leniency agreement, signed by President Dilma Rousseff on the 18th of December. Read the full document delivered to the court here.

With the justification of avoiding layoffs in the business sector, the MP implements new rules to speed up leniency agreements, those in which, in exchange for reducing the penalty or even the elimination of fines, a company involved in some type of illegality denounces the scheme and undertakes to assist a public agency in the investigation.

In a note, signed by the two bodies, the government states that, “instead of limiting TCU's participation in leniency agreements, the MP implements the legal provision for the performance of the courts of auditors, including that of the Union, since there was no previously mentioned such participation in any legal diploma ”(see the full note at the end of this article).

“It is worth noting that among the three points required by the Public Prosecutor's Office with TCU, two were already being observed by the federal government, namely, the non-binding of TCU to the leniency agreement and the observance of the external control work already carried out by the court. Regarding the compatibility between the internal rules of the TCU and the Anti-Corruption Law amended by the provisional measure, both AGU and CGU understand that it is fully attainable ”, state the bodies in the note.

Source: G1 (14/01)

Click here to read the full article

 

 

Anti-corruption law is amended to facilitate agreements

The Federal Government published in the Federal Official Gazette of 21/12/2015, the Provisional Measure 703, amending the Law 12.846/ 2013, which makes administrative and civil liability of legal entities for the practice of acts harmful to public administration. The MP 703 aims to facilitate the so-called leniency agreement.

Among the amendments to the Law, the MP provides that legal entities that enter into the leniency agreement may continue to participate in bids and contracts with the public administration if they comply with penalties and other legal conditions. In the event that the legal entity is the first to sign the leniency agreement on the investigated acts and facts, the reduction of fines provided for in the Law may reach its complete remission, with no other financial penalty resulting from the specified infractions being applicable. in the agreement.

To access the full text of MP 703 - Click here

 

Business integrity and ethics

The Brazilian Global Compact Network launched the “Caderno do Pacto - Anticorrupção”. The objective is to share the actions of the Pact to support companies in the adoption and maintenance of compliance and anti-corruption. For the head of Anticorruption and Transparency of the UN Global Compact, Olajobi Makinwa, corruption is the misuse of a trusted power, almost always motivated by greed. She states that the practice is not exclusive to the public authorities, as many companies instigate and participate in this type of misdemeanor. The notebook was developed by the thematic group Anticorruption of the Brazilian Network of the Global Compact, coordinated by Olga Pontes, from Braskem. "The material is innovative and intends to inform and provoke companies to create actions that combat any type of distortion of ethics", he says.

The “Notebook of the Pact - Anticorruption” devotes a complete chapter to the Anticorruption Law and presents a test to assess whether the company acts in a way that gives rise to illicit practices. Another chapter is dedicated to compliance policies and addresses the benefits of adopting them. The material serves both for companies that already adopt the practices to update themselves in the debate and for those that intend to create actions that curb corruption. Download here.

Source: pactoglobal.org.br (8/12)

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International corruption ranking shows a stagnant Brazil

 

The last international ranking that measures the perception of corruption, released by the NGO Transparency International in 2014, showed that Brazil remained stagnant. Despite recent investigations and judgments in cases such as the monthly allowance and corruption at Petrobrás, Brazil ranks 69th in a ranking of 175 countries, the same place as four years ago.

The new ranking has not yet been released, but the NGO Transparência Internacional (TI) started last Wednesday (9/12) a public vote in search of the best representative of the “great corruption” from a list of 15 “candidates” that includes the case of Petrobras, in addition to ex-president of Panama Ricardo Martinelli and the president of Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Obiang.

The voting period will run until February 9 through the websitewww.unmaskthecorrupt.org

 

Anti-Corruption Law is the subject of a book launched by ETCO

The constant corruption scandals that have been reported in Brazil lately can make many people think that crime is winning the war against ethics. But greater disclosure may in fact represent the opposite: the real confrontation of this problem that corrodes the nation. This is the thesis that prevails in the book The Siege of Corruptors - The History and Challenges of the New Law that Punishes Companies for Illegal and Unethical Practices, written by journalist Oscar Pilagallo from a seminar held by ETCO-Brazilian Institute of Ethics in Competition in partnership with the newspaper Economic value.

The seminar, held in 2014, was one of the first events in the country to discuss the effects of the so-called Anti-Corruption Law, which came into force earlier that year. The new law increased the punishment of companies involved in corruption cases and encouraged the adoption of integrity programs to prevent this evil. The ETCO and Market brought together lawyers, compliance professionals and other experts on the subject, in addition to authorities such as the then Chief Minister of the Comptroller General of the Union, Jorge Hage.

Getting used to corruption

The book summarizes the main themes discussed at the event, such as the objective and joint responsibility of companies, the rules of leniency agreements and the principles that should guide a compliance program. In addition to the content of the seminar, Pilagallo incorporated the new regulations of the Anti-Corruption Law that occurred in 2015 into the work.

At the opening of the book, ETCO President Evandro Guimarães talks about the moment Brazil is going through. “The greatest risk for a nation is not corruption itself. Corruption exists even in the most advanced countries. The greatest danger is that people will get used to it, stop trusting institutions and lose their capacity for indignation. Or worse: to believe that corruption is part of the culture and to begin, themselves, to commit illegal acts in exchange for undue advantages without guilt or remorse. Such a country is doomed to ethical, moral and economic decay. Fortunately, the signs are that Brazil has chosen another path ”, wrote Evandro.

This is the fifth book that Oscar Pilagallo writes for ETCO. The others were Competition Ethics - Reflection, Analysis and Perspectives; Corruption - Barriers to Development in Brazil; Law and Economics; is Market Tax.

O Siege of Corruptors it was launched by the publisher Elsevier-Campus, has 130 pages and costs R $ 45. The book can be purchased through the website www.elsevier.com.br.