Sabrina Bandali comments in CBA National magazine on the state of confronting corruption in Canada. She says that foreign bribery case law is thin on the ground in Canada and its scarcity feeds a vicious cycle. With little in the case law to go on, businesses struggle to know precisely what the law requires of them.
“When a company notices that something in its operations has gone offside, clearly there are right answers—it should investigate, it should fix the problem,” Sabrina says. “But companies are still faced with a larger uncertainty over what the law requires. And a lack of enforcement leads to that uncertainty. A lot of Canadian companies operating abroad work through third parties. They’re asking themselves, what is the scope of our responsibilities when it comes to these third parties? How far do we need to go to ensure our suppliers aren’t crossing the line? We’ve had anti-corruption laws on the books now for at least 20 years. We should be further along.”
Sabrina also comments on how adding a “failure to prevent” offence would expand the suite of options available to combat corruption.
“When a company notices that something in its operations has gone offside, clearly there are right answers—it should investigate, it should fix the problem,” Sabrina says. “But companies are still faced with a larger uncertainty over what the law requires. And a lack of enforcement leads to that uncertainty. A lot of Canadian companies operating abroad work through third parties. They’re asking themselves, what is the scope of our responsibilities when it comes to these third parties? How far do we need to go to ensure our suppliers aren’t crossing the line? We’ve had anti-corruption laws on the books now for at least 20 years. We should be further along.”
Sabrina also comments on how adding a “failure to prevent” offence would expand the suite of options available to combat corruption.
