Bribery Ranks at the Top of the Corporate Corruption List

Integrity Interactive, a firm that helps global corporations manage and reduce the risk of compliance failures, picked an interesting time to release its study of the biggest ethics violations by companies the same day that Eliot Spitzer, a rabid prosecutor (some would say persecuter) of corporate crimes, resigned as Governor of New York due to his own, uhhhhhh, ethical transgressions.

In any event, Integrity Interactive study analyzed the compliance-training records of nearly 3 million employees, from more than 400 companies, and compiled what it calls the Top 12 Corporate Ethics and Compliance Concerns:

1. Anti-Bribery Requirements
2. Records Management
3. Antitrust Contact with Competitors
4. Mutual Respect
5. Privacy
6. Financial Integrity
7. Conflicts of Interest and Gifts
8. Careful Communication
9. Proper Use of Computers
10. Information Security
11. Export Controls
12. Product Safety and Liability

Explaining the results, Richard Cellini, a vice president at Integrity Interactive, says, "From tainted meat recalls, bribing foreign officials or lead paint in toys, to the theft of corporate intellectual property or data breaches at mainstream retailers, there is a never-ending list of issues which today's executive must worry about."

The survey results points out that anti-bribery requirements refers to helping companies "avoid the difficulties of organizations under investigation for charges related to official corruption," which presumably would include graft, illegal campaign contributions and miscellaneous payoffs to venal politicians. If not, then those concerns should definitely be added to next year's survey.