Introduction
its focus on disclosure highlights the important role that reporting has in strengthening corporate governance and sustainable business practices. In a similar study on reporting practices, TI focused on the oil and gas sector and on the critical role of transparency in revenue payments as a means of reversing the ‘resource curse’, whereby many resource-rich countries stubbornly remain some of the poorest in the world. Reflecting on the results of this study, which examined the reporting practices of forty-two oil and gas companies in twenty-one countries of operation, Juanita Olaya points out that transparency in revenue payments is not yet the norm in the industry. Wide variation in company practices indicates that the standard could be raised, however. Home-country regulation of companies, as well as stock market listing, seem to have a strong effect on reporting practices, with the upshot that both companies and governments need to do more to turn the tide towards greater transparency in the sector. As with the TRAC study, the results suggest that clear and widely-adopted standards for anti-corruption reporting would aid in these corporate efforts to reduce corruption’s ill effects on business. Most of the above research reflects on company practices with regard to corruption – practices that are often dependent on the enabling environment and the capacity of regulation to create a level playing field for firms. What emerges clearly is that addressing the role of companies in bribery and corruption requires strong effort by the entire spectrum of stakeholders, especially by governments. For the past several years Transparency International has carried out assessments of the progress of OECD countries in implementing the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, frequently called the OECD AntiBribery Convention. Utilising expert assessment, TI provides a benchmark of OECD implementation by looking at a number of indicators, from the number of cases brought under the convention, the institutional set-ups – such as for whistleblower protection – that are critical for implementation and the legal hindrances to enforcement. In 2008 thirty-four countries were included in the TI Progress Report. The findings are mixed: while enforcement has grown in some OECD countries, such as France, Germany and the United States, there remains little or no enforcement in others, such as Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom. A parallel finding with the research on company disclosure, presented above, is the weak provision for access to information in twenty-four of the thirty-four countries reviewed. The call for more effective implementation of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention is also supported by another research article: Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra finds that implementation of laws against foreign bribery stand the best chance of demonstrating success if they are coordinated across countries. Using foreign direct investment flows, he establishes that investors from countries that have implemented laws against foreign bribery show signs of greater sensitivity towards – as evidenced by less investment in – countries reputed for their high corruption risks. These findings also point to the influential role that a key stakeholder – investors – may be playing in the fight against corruption. Howell Jackson and Mark Roe show that the public enforcement of securities laws can be as powerful as private enforcement, with the latter most often achieved though lawsuits. This
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