Fraud Intelligence

A three-day Fraud & Corruption Summit, the fifth, held annually in Europe by MIS Training Institute, recently brought together speakers and participants from Denmark, Europe and beyond. Esther Martin reports.

Bribery deep-set as anti-fraud efforts lose ground, European survey finds Almost one in five employees, irrespective of seniority, believe that bribery is an acceptable means to win or retain business according to the Ernst & Young European..

Timon Molloy, Editor

On 29 March 2011 the Court of Appeal handed down its long awaited judgment in the case of Sinclair Investments (UK) Ltd v Versailles Trade Finance Ltd (in administration). [1] The Court examined the relief available for breach of fiduciary duty, questioning whether the long-established Privy Council decision in Attorney-General for Hong Kong v Reid [1994] 1 AC 324 is good law. Charles Thomson, Yindi Gesinde and Henry Garfield of Baker & McKenzie trace through the decision.

"A man's errors are his portals of discovery," said the Irish writer James Joyce. Two presenters at MIS Training Institute's recent Fraud & Corruption Summit in Copenhagen tell of how their employers learnt through bitter experience the cost of fraud and corruption, then turned things around. By Esther Martin.

It has long been recognised that incidents of fraud, when they become known, impact the reputations of individuals and organisations involved, writes Richard Minogue. Reputation, the perception held by others, will fluctuate in value in response to individual or corporate behaviour; it exhibits a direct correlation with expectations of performance. A good reputation is earned by consistently delivering against expectations, a bad one, the price of failing to meet them. A fraud incident is likely to contribute to a negative perception or, at the least, tarnish a positive image. We will look at the link between fraud and reputation in the organisational context and how it should be managed.

The long-awaited Guidance on the UK Bribery Act was finally published on 30 March 2011, which means that the Act comes into effect on 1 July 2011. Companies waiting on the Guidance before taking measures to ensure they will be compliant with the legislation now face a potentially very busy period, not least because the document offers neither a roadmap nor checklist for businesses to follow, but remains focused on guiding principles; it also carries no legal force. Businesses will be responsible for interpreting the principles to design, integrate and monitor an anti-corruption compliance programme that is fit for purpose. Qualifications aside, the Guidance provides helpful clarity on some important points, says Daniel Barton of Alvarez & Marsal.

Regulations are no match for human failings. As lawyers, financial investigators and chastened investors continue to pick through the rubble of the Madoff scandal and other massive frauds, new, more inventive versions of the same old story are being written.