2021 First Semester and Future IBA Anti-Corruption Committee Events

We hope this message finds you, your families, and all those close to you safe and healthy.

After more than a year of the pandemic, lockdowns and social distancing measures, we can fortunately see the light at the end of the tunnel with the increased vaccination efforts in many countries, subsequently giving us hope that we will soon be able to meet in person again. During this time, the IBA Anticorruption Committee (IBA ACC) was an important channel in enabling the Committee’s members to stay in touch, make plans for the (hopefully) near future and attend several interesting events hosted by the IBA ACC.

To give you all a quick overview on the key activities/events organised by the IBA ACC – the Committee has organised four webinars so far:

The first one, held on 9 March entitled ‘Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Enforcement: 2020 and beyond’, focused on significant enforcement actions from 2020, cooperation among authorities worldwide, enforcement trends and practical implications to companies and individuals. In case you missed it, you can access the webinar here.

The webinar ‘Exclusions and Debarments in Europe’, organised by the Debarment and Exclusions Subcommittee, took place on 25 May and explored many trending topics on exclusions and debarments from public procurements procedures in Europe, such as implications on anticompetitive infringements to procurement procedures, standard of proof required for debarment, and how contracting authorities and multilateral development banks deal with group companies in exclusion and debarment cases. Additional information on this very interesting discussion can be accessed here.

The third webinar of this semester was co-organised by the IBA ACC and the American Society of International Law (ASIL). ‘The First-Ever UN General Assembly Special Session against Corruption: Where do we go from there?’ took place on 7 July and discussed the main takeaways from this historic event, followed by deliberations on the future international agenda and the challenges ahead. You can find the full content of this webinar here.

Finally, ‘A game-changer in the making: the pending German Corporate Sanctions Law’ took place on 28 July, discussing the key takeaways of the most recent government draft bill of the ‘Law to strengthen Integrity in Business’ or the ‘Associations´ Sanctions Act’ which could not be passed prior to the parliamentary summer break end of June 2021 after fierce political debate. Dubbed in the legal community as arguably the most incisive law of the last decades proposing criminal liability for legal entities, this session elaborated on what companies must do to prepare for a probable later enactment of this or a similar new act. Watch it here.

In addition to the webinars, the Committee has also worked on several other activities, such as the Corruption Risk Assessment Toolkit, in partnership with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the IBA Anti-slavery Project. The purpose of the Corruption Risk Assessment Toolkit is to help SMEs to measure their own risk assessment processes/systems as part of our SEACAB Project funded by the UK Government. The IBA ACC assisted OECD in this initiative and provided input to the proposed risk-assessment toolkit. The submission focused on the effectiveness of the risk assessment and the methodology, including top management involvement, evaluating internal and external risks and the importance of periodic reviews. The team also contributed to the questionnaire to help SMEs identify any weaknesses in their assessment process, and to understand the level of maturity of their assessment methodology in order to improve further. It is important to note that the Self-Evaluation Tool for Corruption Risk Assessment Processes is intended for SMEs that already have anti-bribery and corruption compliance programmes in place. We hope that this will allow companies to better invest their resources whilst improving their procedures to develop a culture of integrity, in tandem with reduction in overall costs, time and primarily, their risk of corruption. The toolkit can be accessed here.​​​​​​

Don’t miss out on our upcoming events!

​​​​​​​Last but not the least, we have a number of activities scheduled from July onwards and plan to have our first in person conference together with NYC Bar Association on 29 November. Keep a look out for details as the date draws near. Further:

1. Save the Date for the monthly IBA ACC officers’ meetings at 15:00 (CEST)

In addition to the many other ways we find to connect with each other, our monthly IBA ACC officers’ meetings have continued to provide an amazing way to keep in touch and to share valuable information. The next IBA ACC officers’ meetings are scheduled for the following dates – do not miss out!

• 23 August;
• 20 September;
• 18 October;
• 15 November; and
• 20 December.

2. Get Involved: Additional key dates for the IBA ACC

We are pleased to announce that the IBA ACC will start a new selection of candidates for officer positions. Further details will be announced in due course – if you are interested in applying, stay tuned to the calendar below:

• 31 August: call for candidates;
• 30 September: end of application; and
• 31 October: decision on candidates

We wish you happy reading and please keep the contributions coming. Our focus is to issue two additional Newsletters in 2021, enabling the Committee’s members to keep in touch, share experiences and enrich our dialogue.

Best wishes,

Juliana Maia Daniel
Newsletter Officer
Juliana.daniel@lefosse.com

Sherbir Panag
Newsletter Officer
​​​​​​​sherbir@pblawoffices.com