Anti-Corruption and Compliance in Ukraine
On 25 March 2019, ADVANTAGE AUSTRIA Ukraine with the the support of UNIC, Business Ombudsman Council – Ukraine(BOC), Austria ICC and Advice Group held an event “Anti-Corruption and Compliance in Ukraine”
Gladly share with you some reflections of Olga Belikova, Partner at Advice Group, on event, that took place last week in Kyiv.
“Integrity, compliance & fraud combating. These 3 topics have set my last week in motion. On the 25th of March a Compliance Workshop of Austrian Commercial Counsel gathered the representatives of honest and integrity-oriented business community for sharing experience and insights how to stay compliant in the environment with high level of corruption vulnerability and whether we shall take seriously the risk of fraud in own organization.
Maximilian Burger-Scheidlin, the executive director of Austrian ICC, presented real cases about corruption in many countries and how solutions work. In many countries, most vulnerable to corruption and bribe, one sustainable integrity approach together with time and perseverance helps to put an end to pressure and extortion. I would emphasize, especially on his notice, that gains and profits a businessman receives because of a wrongdoing are short-term, in long perspective they always face losses, damages, and even improsinment.
With Advice Group we presented some figures and numbers from our cases experience and compared them with global statistic data. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) estimates that for typical organization fraud costs 5% of turnover each year. That may seem too high, but recent cases concerning Ukrainian business present even 8% from turnover.
It should be noted, that one of the ways to fight corruption is not to participate in it and to combat fraud – prevent, detect and control.
There is one more interesting finding, that I discovered last week during ACFE Fraud Conference Europe in Zurich.
Bruce Dorris, J.D., President, CEO of the Association of certified fraud examiners, presented the study about Ethics of today’s youth from Josephson Institute. According to this 20% of 23.000 high school students have stolen an item from a store, 32% used the internet to plagiarise, 51% cheated on a test in a school and 75% copied homework of their fellow students. At the same time 81% of them “do what is right to be better than others”, 96% believe it is important that people trust them and 99% believe it is important to be a good person. They say, everything we see has roots, so is childhood the right time, when one should combat fraud? It would be nice, but it is possible only in our families.
So, is the fraud invincible? Not at all! We have learned a lot of techniques and ideas about early detection of fraud in the framework of both old-school and modern approaches like social engineering, cross-border tracing, securing assets and dark web tactics. The exciting experience sharing and support from anti-fraud professionals provided me with unforgettable feeling to be a part of the world’s largest anti-fraud organization – ACFE. Together we are more than 85000 members, but the army of well-equipped fraud fighters! Do not be scared: we advise and secure, but do not judge.”