Global Risk Alliance

Hollistic Threat Mitigation

[stevetosh]

Is an annual anti-corruption risk assessment part of your organisations prevention approach? https://a-rran.com/op/risk-framework-step-one #leadership #anticorruption #ethics #education https://www.instagram.com/p/CUKcCdaq9g_/?utm_medium=tumblr

[stevetosh]

What's the next step in building your anti-corruption expertise https://a-rran.com/sp/anti-corruption-education-network #corruption #ethics #leadership #education https://www.instagram.com/p/CUDTC1BKAnF/?utm_medium=tumblr

[stevetosh]

[stevetosh]

A corruption formula might suggest that there is an answer to corruption mitigation. Certainly areas to consider when looking at an insider threat and assessing corruption risk. https://a-rran.com/op/risk-framework-step-one https://www.instagram.com/p/CTm-rtLoyxU/?utm_medium=tumblr

[stevetosh]

How do you use education to ensure that you understand your corruption risk? https://a-rran.com/sp/3-day-organisation-virtual-training-programme https://www.instagram.com/p/CTkR02EIuOX/?utm_medium=tumblr

[stevetosh]

As a leader in compliance how do you bud your understanding of the risk your organisation faces? #leadership #usa #compliance #corruption #procurement #risk #anticorruption #education #awareness https://www.instagram.com/p/CTjN73-IDRJ/?utm_medium=tumblr

[stevetosh]

What is the number 1 challenge you're dealing with right now in anticorruption and what coaching do you need? https://a-rran.com/op/risk-framework-step-one https://www.instagram.com/p/CTjI8WtIklr/?utm_medium=tumblr

[stevetosh]

Organised crime infiltration of public procurement

[stevetosh]

Supply Chain Risk: An Organised Crime Opportunity During the Global Response to Covid-19 Crisis

It must be recognised that when we have a national or global crisis, whether it is natural, technological or man made it is an unfortunate side of such impact and tragedy that criminals and organised crime will target the opportunity immediately.

[stevetosh]

Procurement Fraud: The Unseen Risk Within the Financial Sector

Procurement fraud is not an area of financial crime risk that is generally identified or specifically highlighted as a risk within the financial sector.

In many procurement fraud cases an associated risk can be corruption, where an individual accepts a bribe payment to facilitate the awarding of a contract, and once a contract is obtained by this method, in many cases further fraud can be committed to ensure maximum financial gain for the fraudster throughout the lifetime of the contract.

[stevetosh]

Counterfeit Products: The Global Threat That is Being Ignored

Counterfeit products are a typology of procurement fraud that can have a significant financial, health and safety impact

Much has been published internationally about the global threat of counterfeit products including the impact that it has on public health and safety and yet there remains public complacency and the continued lack of a coordinated international response to this proliferation that impacts all sectors

[stevetosh]

Procurement Fraud: Four Key Points to Understand the Scale of Underlying Risk

Once you map out the four key areas of procurement fraud risk an organisation will have a strong starting point in understanding the level of procurement fraud it faces and an opportunity to design a framework to mitigate its risk.

[stevetosh]

FCPA SEC 2019 Actions: What lessons can we learn

Having recently published their enforcement actions for 2019, and in scrutinizing the US Securities and Exchange Commission success it is interesting to note that not much has changed in the world of bribery and corruption. Companies in attempting to obtain or retain high value international contracts continue to be su

[stevetosh]

Risk Awareness: A Different Perspective

Understanding the benefits that education can have on risk mitigation and your ability to adequately respond is an essential part of any risk mitigation framework.

[stevetosh]

Anti-Corruption Assessment During Vendor Registration: The Key to Protecting Revenues.

We look at a new way of thinking for Government and private sector procurement where there are significant concerns surrounding procurement fraud and corruption. How do we protect national and organisation revenues and how do we send a message that we have a new stance in dealing with this problem.

[stevetosh]

12 Key Factors to Support Transformation into an Anti-Fraud Culture

Taking a first step in providing anti-fraud training and raising awareness or undertaking an organisation fraud risk review are positive steps forward in mitigating fraud risk.

[stevetosh]

The Undeniable Value of a Whistleblower Hotline

It is common practice globally for Government organisations that are endeavouring to assist in identifying malpractice, criminal or unethical behaviour (whether it be tax, criminal justice, regulatory or public sector procurement) to introduce a whistleblower hotline.

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ 2018 Report to the Nation estimated that up to 45% of fraud reports are received via tips, with 54% of those coming from employees.

In November 2018, with less than 3 years since the introduction of its whistleblower policy, the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, Nigeria announced that it had recovered over N$527 billion or approximately US$53 million.

Countries such as the United States of America, Canada and South Korea have introduced whistleblower reward programmes. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has awarded more than $300 million to whistleblowers since the inception of the agency’s whistleblower program in 2011. US Enforcement actions from whistleblower tips has resulted in more than $1 billion in financial remedies.

Implementation

The European Union, within its impact assessment in relation to the introduction of new whistleblower protection legislation, highlighted the economic, societal and environmental benefits of whistleblowing. It stated that whistleblowing will help to unmask and deter fraud and corruption within the EU budget (current risk in loss of revenue is estimated to between €179 and €256 billion). In the area of public procurement, it confirmed that the benefit of effective whistleblower protection in the EU is estimated to be between €5.8 and €9.6 billion each year.

In its 2017 report ‘Estimating the Economic Benefits of Whistleblower protection in Public Procurement’. The European Commission stated that the costs for setting up and maintaining whistleblower protection are quite low in comparison with the potential benefits. In the Netherlands, for example, the ratio of potential benefits to costs ranged from 22:1 to 37:1, while in Romania it ranged from 319:1 to 532:1. Specifically, for the €526,000 costs the potential benefits were between €168 and €280 million.

Use of technology

A greater use of technology is now being recognised as essential if an organisation wishes to maximise the receipt and analysis of data in order to map out its risk and to protect an organisation’s revenues. Initiatives such as ipaidabribe.com in India were set up to tackle corruption through public reports on the nature, number, pattern, types, location, frequency and value of corrupt acts. The reports are not only used to map out corruption but also for improving governance systems and procedures and tightening law enforcement and regulation where possible.

An organisation must first quantify what it wants to achieve from this data. Analytical solutions and technologies such as artificial intelligence, voice recognition and translation, location and data mapping give us significant opportunities to understand and picture current risks.

Whistleblower protection

Global whistleblower protection and legislation has seen varying degrees of disparity in safeguarding individuals. The US has introduced legislation that punishes organisations and compensates individuals where retribution is taken in response to whistleblowing.

Australia has taken whistleblower protection a step further and introduced law that requires all public and large proprietary company to spell out how they will “support and protect” those who speak up before they begin to experience any detrimental effects. Additionally, a company can now be held liable if it fails to prevent detrimental acts as a result of having no support plans in place or neglecting to implement those that are.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Detection of Foreign Bribery: The Role of Whistleblowers and Whistleblower Protection also highlights good practice and areas where whistleblowers need greater protection.

The value propositions

The significant global research that has been undertaken in this area outlines the many benefits for the introduction of a whistleblower hotline and protection mechanism. In addition to the significant opportunity for financial recovery, there are also many areas that include societal and environmental benefits and also positive action that support the protection of an organisation’s reputation.

Having additional inheformation that will allow an organisation the ability to map out its risks, to plan and introduce the correct level of risk mitigation, can only be of benefit.

Introducing a hotline and publishing the fact that an organisation has one also communicates within, and outside of, an organisation that it has a strong culture of ethics and that it is serious about protecting the organisation’s revenues. It is recognised globally that most organisations, large or small, are targeted by fraud or other financial crime. Hiding the fact that an organization has been the victim of these crimes, or that it does not have the facility for individuals to report such illicit conduct, may send the wrong message about an organisation’s values.