Anti-bribery and corruption, and sanctions

Helping you avoid financial and reputational damage – and use technology to proactively mitigate risk

The rising stakes of ABC and sanctions compliance

Bribery and corruption is an unfortunate and growing reality of global business. According to our Global Economic Crime Survey, 23% of businesses saw at least one incident of bribery or corruption in 2018, an increase from 6% in 2016.

No business is immune to corruption, whether it’s deliberate or unintentional. The advent of international anti-corruption legislation, notably the UK’s Bribery Act and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), has considerably raised the stakes.

Third parties represent the most significant bribery, corruption and sanctions risk for organisations. Whether you are considering a merger or acquisition, or have a supply chain that’s heavily dependent on third parties, it’s essential to understand exactly who you’re doing business with.

If the worst happens, our highly experienced forensic teams are ready to investigate and help limit the fallout. But we encourage a proactive approach. Our solutions focus on mitigating the risks associated with bribery, corruption and sanctions from the start – by strengthening your defences, actively managing risks through the use of innovative technology, and examining and monitoring the integrity of third parties.

The ABC landscape is evolving

Businesses are operating in a fast-moving environment and the anti-bribery, corruption and sanctions landscape is no exception. We expect the demand for transparency and stronger enforcement to increase over time.

Regulators want to know that organisations have adequate defences against bribery and corruption in place – including well-designed processes and a clear code of conduct. Technological innovation is playing a vital role in allowing organisations to better manage third party and sanctions risk –machine learning brings the promise of more efficient and effective screening and intelligent, predictive risk management.

How can PwC help you?

Our anti-bribery, corruption and sanctions professionals have extensive experience, expertise and global reach. Many have direct experience of specific sectors and the nuances of compliance that they entail. We help you understand and respond to anti-corruption compliance wherever you are, and whatever you do.

Innovative tools and solutions underpin everything we do. We use digitally-enabled analytics and advanced monitoring tools to help you see across the compliance spectrum, allowing you to intelligently predict and manage risk.

Our services include:

Due diligence. The biggest blind spot for many companies is the people they do business with. Our Global Economic Crime Survey found that 68% of external actors that had committed fraud were ‘frenemies’ of the organisation – agents, vendors, shared service providers or customers. We carry out detailed third party due diligence to help you assess, prioritise and eliminate the threat.

Compliance programmes. Our Global Economic Crime Survey found that only a third of companies globally had carried out an anti-bribery and corruption risk assessment in the previous two years. We will help you fully assess your risks, design a new or enhance an existing compliance programme, and support you with implementation.

Investigations. Whether an investigation is internal or regulator-mandated, we provide full support.

Sanctions. We can help you assess for sanctions compliance risk along your supply chain and other third party relationships. Our proprietary tech solutions offer rapid and effective sanctions screening, identifying potential risks before they affect your business.

Case studies

PwC supported a multinational tobacco company in meeting a regulator request to screen several thousand of its counterparties for potential sanctions breaches. We began by cleansing a large complex data set and used our proprietary screening tool to match against multiple sanctions lists. We then used our intelligence capability to identify where further research was needed. The client was able to assess any potential breaches and report regulatory compliance in a timely manner.
Following the discovery of accounting irregularities relating to our client’s overseas subsidiaries, our investigations team was deployed to undertake a large and complex anti-bribery investigation which focused on illicit payments made through intermediaries. The company was able to successfully defer prosecution relating to the offences and we went on to support our client in developing its third party management programme and enhanced due diligence.