Pledges by Dubai-based businesses to tackle bribery and corruption are all too frequently not backed up by effective policies, new research from the law firm Eversheds has found.
Two-thirds of board-level executives surveyed at Dubai-based large organisations admitted that their company’s internal anti-bribery and corruption policies do not work effectively.
And while all Dubai-based respondents said that bribery and corruption were important issues, only 36 per cent said they actually understood their anti-bribery policies.
“It’s good news that there’s the recognition of such a gap between what is said and how company policies work in practice,” said Ben Elers, a programme director with Transparency International.
“Executives need to think clearly about the business case for moving forward. As we saw with Volkswagen, if issues aren’t identified and dealt with seriously it can do serious damage to a company’s reputation.”
More than a third of Dubai-based respondents admitted that anti-bribery due diligence did not factor during M&A processes.
“The challenge for businesses in the UAE is to ensure their approach to anti-bribery and corruption is appropriate and commercially sensible,” said Rebecca Copley, Eversheds’ head of fraud and investigations in the Middle East.
“If businesses can identify questionable practices in their organisation early, it can make the difference between facing a prosecution or not.”
Fifty-five per cent of Dubai executives that had identified bribery and corruption in their midst had reported matters to law enforcement agencies. This is lower than 72 per cent of Chinese officials, but higher than both France (41 per cent) and Brazil (26 per cent).
Earlier this year, the UAE ranked joint 23rd in the world for clean business standards in Transparency International’s 2015 Corruption Perception Index, up from 25th the previous year, putting it second only to Qatar in the Middle East.
Last month, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, announced the establishment of the Dubai Economic Security Centre. The responsibilities of the new centre include the combating of corruption, fraud, bribery and embezzlement.
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