More than 400 CEOs and business leaders from companies around the world gathered in Australia recently for the B20 Summit. Allens Partner Rachel Nicholson attended the Summit in her capacity as a Director of the UN Global Compact Network Australia and Convenor of its Anti-Corruption Leadership Group. She joins us now on BRR to discuss some of the anti-corruption outcomes from the Summit, Rachel thanks so much for your time.

It’s good to be here.

Now why was anti-corruption such a central topic of discussion at the B20 Summit?

That’s a good question. On current estimates corruption accounts for about $3 trillion lost to the global economy and its about 5% of global GDP, so we’re talking about incredibly significant sums of money that are lost to the global economy. As a result it’s really clear and the business community has increasingly understood that corruption remains a serious challenge to economic growth and development, it increases business costs, it impacts on investment and trade, and it also of course perpetuates profit policy. So that was – is really why it was so high on the agenda at the B20.

And what were some of the major anti-corruption recommendations to come out of the Summit?

Some of the major ones which came out of the different task forces were really well targeted to the policy agenda of the B20. To give you an idea the Financing Growth Taskforce, which was led by Mike Smith, CEO of ANZ, was looking at a range of issues around the – how financing growth and obstacles to that impact on development and growth. From an anti-corruption perspective the recommendations made included harmonising anti-corruption laws globally, in particular to increase transparency of ownership and control of companies, and that’s really with a view to assisting – to assisting regulatory agencies to track financial crimes. Now that would be an excellent initiative if that came off. Another one that came out of the Trade Taskforce which was led by Andrew McKenzie the CEO of BHP Billiton, was looking at particularly the corruption issues that are associated with Customs and border activity. It’s recognised that corruption remains a significant barrier to trade, particularly around those Customs and border facilities. So some of the initiatives and recommendations were looking at transparency of Customs, fees and charges, and also the potential use of automated Customs procedures, which would have a huge impact because you’re taking out the capacity to engage in bribery.

And which of these recommendations do you consider to be the most important?

Well one recommendation in particular that I thought was very important came out of the Human Capital Taskforce which was led by CEO of GE Mining Steve Sergeant and that was the harmonisation of anti-corruption laws to encourage companies to build best practice compliance programs, and regulatory reforms to recognise self-reporting. It’s a reform that is really desperately needed and would no doubt be welcomed broadly by the business community because businesses currently face the uncertainties of vastly different regulatory responses to self-reporting, and that’s compounded by regulatory authorities around the globe taking very different approaches about the value that they put on compliance programs and how that relates to when liability should be attributed to a company, so that was probably the most important one from my perspective.

Yeah certainly. Well what happens now with these recommendations?

Following the Summit, the B20 resumes its dialogue with G20 policy makers, to identify how to implement those B20 recommendations and the G20 is scheduled to take place in Brisbane in November so it will be a very busy few months from now.

It will indeed. Rachel thanks so much for sharing some of the anti-corruption outcomes of the B20 Summit.

Thank you.

That was Rachel Nicholson, who is a Partner in the Litigation and Dispute Resolution team at Allens. Listeners if you have any questions for Rachel, you can send them through either using the panel on your screen or otherwise via email to law@brrmedia.com.

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	Allens (8AAR)	Sun, 27 Jul 2014 10:30 pm (UK time)	B20 makes anti-corruption recommendations
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