Invitation by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Working Group on combating bribery in Ukraine to join the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions and become a full member of the relevant Working Group is recognition of the fact that Ukraine is clearly choosing a course of action to raise standards of transparency, accountability, and integrity in the interaction between business, civil society, and government.
This opinion was expressed to the Interfax-Ukraine agency by Oleksiy Shevchuk, chairman of the board of the National Association of Lobbyists of Ukraine.
“For us, as a professional community of lobbyists, the request from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is an important signal: the state is clearly choosing a course of action to raise standards of transparency, accountability, and integrity in the interaction between business, civil society, and government,” he said.
Shevchuk noted that “in this context, the Association of Lobbyists of Ukraine believes that business, lobbyists, and state institutions should use this combination of two reforms—anti-corruption and lobbying—as an opportunity.”
According to Shevchuk, this refers, in particular, to the opportunity to create standards of professional ethics and conduct in the field of lobbying that will meet both the requirements of the law and the expectations of international partners, as well as the opportunity to review the internal policies of companies, “especially those operating abroad or in an international context, for compliance with the requirements of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development regarding the bribery of foreign officials.”
In addition, according to Shevchuk, such accession will “contribute to the new lobbying system becoming not only a platform for interests, but also a guarantor of good faith participation in state-building processes, creating trust in Ukraine among investors and international partners.”
“We believe that these changes should transform from a formal approach into an effective practical tool, and the Association is ready to facilitate training, code development, consultation, and monitoring. For Ukraine, this is a chance to increase competitiveness and demonstrate that we are capable of acting in accordance with the best international practices,” he said.
As reported, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Working Group on Bribery invited Ukraine to join the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions and become a full member of the relevant Working Group. The basis for this process was draft law No. 11443, prepared by the parliamentary committee on law enforcement, on improving mechanisms for holding legal entities accountable for bribing foreign officials. In particular, the draft law provides for the possibility of applying special confiscation on the basis of a court decision to apply criminal law measures to a legal entity. According to the draft law, additional (non-financial) criminal law measures may be applied to a legal entity in the form of a temporary restriction on the activities of the legal entity or a temporary restriction on the acquisition of rights and/or benefits. The draft law also provides for an increase in the amount of fines imposed on legal entities as the main criminal law measure.
