Tool to help multinational firms assess bribery risk

Researchers have created a tool that will help multinational companies assess the business bribery risks faced when conducting business in foreign countries and tailor compliance policies to address those threats.

Called the TRACE Matrix, the tool improves upon previous methods of risk assessment by incorporating approaches that are better designed to help businesses predict bribery risk and similar threats.

The researchers were from global policy think tank RAND Corporation and business compliance group TRACE International.

"Expanding a business to a foreign country can be difficult and complicated. The TRACE Matrix provides businesses with a new tool to assess the risk that government officials will attempt to secure bribes as a cost of doing business in that country," explained said Karlyn D. Stanley, adjunct senior researcher at the non-profit RAND.

The 10 countries with the highest business bribery risk score are: Angola, Burundi, Cambodia, Chad, Guinea, Nigeria, South Sudan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Yemen.

The 10 countries with the lowest business bribery risk scores are Canada, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Sweden and the United States, TRACE Matrix revealed.

To create the new index, researchers reviewed the literature on foreign business corruption, bribery of government officials and government and corruption measurement.

The RAND team also interviewed US regulators, multinational companies, international consulting firms, international non-profit organisations and global law firms to understand the processes corporations engage in to assess and address business bribery risk.

TRACE International, which has more than 20 years of experience in dealing with business bribery risk, also contributed to the development of the index.

The TRACE Matrix calculates a score for each country, with a range from 1 to 100.

The higher the score, the greater the business bribery risk.

It assesses countries across four domains - business interactions with government, anti-bribery laws and enforcement, government and civil service transparency, and the capacity for civil society oversight, including the role of the media.

The tool is free and is available on the TRACE International website.