FIATA Publishes Best Practices on Prevention of Bribery
Cape Town, 3 October 2019: FIATA, the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations, has released a best practices paper on prevention of bribery during its 2019 World Congress in Cape Town, South Africa. This paper aims at addressing the challenge of corruption and bribery in the international logistics and freight forwarding industry. It provides practitioners with advices on internal control measures against bribery and on cooperating with other stakeholders to prevent it.
The Corruption Perceptions Index 2018 of Transparency International reported that more than two-thirds of 180 countries and territories covered by the Index scored below 50 on a scale of between 0, highly corrupt, and 100, very clean, revealing that the world economy is still heavily burdened by corruption. As a sector deeply involved in cross-border trade and frequently interacting with public officials, the international logistics and freight forwarding industry has a relatively high risk of exposure to corruption or bribery.
Richard Gluck, Chair of FIATA’s Advisory Body Legal Matters, stated, “Our member companies requested a guide to combat bribery and corruption. This best practices paper, developed with support from FIATA’s Customs Affairs Institute, emphasizes the significance of establishing and implementing a systematic anti-bribery policy in the enterprise, with a strong leadership commitment against bribery behaviour. It recommends adoption of clear rules on sensitive issues like gift-giving, facilitation payments and employment of third-party service providers. Recommended processes to deal with bribery solicitations from public officials are also included to help members in such situations.”
FIATA President Babar Badat commented, “Fighting against corruption and bribery is critical to create a level-playing field for the logistics and freight forwarding industry and to lower the costs of trade for the entire supply chain. No one can win this fight on their own. FIATA will continue to work with all stakeholders and strive for a better business environment for the industry.”
For access to the newly published guide, please go to: https://fiata.com/media/documents-for-download.html
Media Contact:
Stephen Morris, Acting Director General
Email: [email protected]
About FIATA
FIATA, the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations, was founded in Vienna, Austria on May 31st 1926. It is a non-governmental organisation that today represents an industry covering approximately 40,000 forwarding and logistics firms, employing around 10 million people in some 160 countries. FIATA has consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations (inter alia ECE, ESCAP, ESCWA, etc.), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) as well as many other UN related bodies, e.g. the World Bank. It is recognised as representing the freight forwarding industry by many other governmental organisations, governmental authorities, private international organisations in the field of transport and logistics, such as the European Commission (through CLECAT), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the International Union of Railways (UIC), the International Road Transport Union (IRU), the World Customs Organization (WCO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), etc.
For further information, please go to: www.fiata.com