Gold Coast, Queensland May 16, 2019 (Issuewire.com) - Patrick Moulette has been in the trenches fighting corruption and bribery around the world for decades. As the head of OECD’s Anti-Corruption Division, his fight is ramping up in the journey to beat the criminals.
Moulette says there’s been progress due to the work of organizations like the OECD. “Our work has led to improvements in the enforcement capabilities across different countries and in the private sector, leading to a revolution in the area of corporate compliance. The fight against corruption started with international conventions, treaties, obligations and grown as countries translated their obligations into their domestic situations,” he said.
Despite this progress, he says there is still a lot to do.
Moulette is the keynote speaker at BPP’s Hong Kong and Singapore Financial Crime Prevention Symposium – 21 and 23 May about the role of the OECD in the fight against bribery and corruption. The conference will examine the key risks facing financial services, which are inherently susceptible to being abused by criminals involved in financial crime. Now more than ever, it is critical that financial services businesses take steps to manage the risk of being involved in money laundering and other illicit financial flows.
Continual change in fighting corruption is a journey and it takes time to change the culture within the organizations particularly the financial services. Moulette says “we can do better.”
“Financial institutions have a key role to play in prevention and detection, not only of money laundering but specifically corruption.
“Whether it’s domestic corruption or bribery, at some time, the proceeds will be going through financial institutions or used to facilitate corruption, but the level of detection within financial services is quite low.
“A 2014 study found only 3% of the concluded cases of bribery were detected from suspicious transaction reports from banks and financial institutions. There must be further work done around raising awareness, helping with detection and providing financial institutions with more feedback on what corruption is, and more examples of cases so the level of detection is significantly increased.”
Moulette said the OECD is very active in this role of raising awareness globally in respect of international bribery corruption.
“Their role is essential in this work. The challenge is to disseminate the information beyond the membership of the OECD and encourage active involvement from major economies like China, India and Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and key financial centers like Singapore,” he said.
“They must be part of this alliance. We’re trying to engage and build awareness with other countries but there are gaps in the network. We can't really mobilize and engage if they do not share or agree with the necessity to fight corruption.”
Bribery and corruption keep many people in poverty and stunts the economic growth of many countries. Moulette said there has been progressing, but it is slow. “The fight against corruption improves every year but moving centimeter by centimeter,” he said.
Media Contact
Publicity Genie annette@publicitygenie.com 478718041 65/181 Lae Drive https://www.bppevents.com/
