Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

The FATF has released the Follow-Up Report to the Mutual Evaluation Report of the United Kingdom, which was adopted in June 2007.

In October 2009, the FATF recognised that the United Kingdom had made significant progress in addressing deficiencies identified in that report, decided that the country should be removed from the regular follow-up process and agreed that it should now report on any further improvements to its Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) system on a biennial basis.

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In a recent study KMPG UK shows that two thirds of companies believe that there are countries in the world where it is not possible to do business without being involved in bribery and corruption, and yet only a third (35 percent) say they have stopped doing business in any countries due to the bribery and corruption risk. The majority of companies say they rely on enhanced controls and third party due diligence when doing business in such countries in order to minimise the dangers.

Alex Plavsic, Head of Fraud Investigations at KPMG Forensic, said: “Companies have a greater awareness now of the bribery and corruption threat due to increased investigations and regulatory activity from the UK and other authorities. However, with the recession companies are having to fight harder than ever to win new contracts, and as a result there could be an increased pressure on those in the front line to over-ride anti-bribery and corruption laws. Compliance processes need to be robust, with special emphasis on due diligence with regard to third party agents, if companies are to protect themselves from regulatory scrutiny and reputational damage. The signs are that many companies could be doing more to manage the risks."

The findings – from a survey of over 100 FTSE listed UK companies – come as companies report an increase in their own internal investigations into possible bribery and corruption breaches. In a similar survey two years ago by KPMG, 27 percent of companies said that they had carried out internal investigations in the previous two years – but this has now grown to nearly four in ten companies (39 percent). The average number of investigations has also grown, from one or two a couple of years ago to three or four now.

The BCC has reported that Treasury minister Stephen Timms said many banks continued "to be involved in tax avoidance that goes well beyond reasonable tax planning.

His comments came as the Treasury issued preliminary rules for how banks should handle their tax affairs.