ISO 37001:2016

Bribery is offering, promising, giving, accepting, or soliciting of an advantage as an inducement for an action which is illegal, unethical of a breach of trust. It is a major issue and risks that facing by any forms of organizations.

The ISO 37001:2016 specifies requirements and provides guidance for establishing, implementing, maintaining, reviewing and improving an anti-bribery management system. The system can be stand-alone or can be integrated into an overall management system.

ISO 37001:2016 is applicable only to bribery. It sets out requirements and provides guidance for a management system designed to help an organization to prevent, detect and respond to bribery and comply with anti-bribery laws and voluntary commitments applicable to its activities.

ISO 37001:2016 does not specifically address fraud, cartels and other anti-trust/competition offences, money-laundering or other activities related to corrupt practices, although an organization can choose to extend the scope of the management system to include such activities.

The requirements of ISO 37001:2016 are generic and are intended to be applicable to all organizations (or parts of an organization), regardless of type, size and nature of activity, and whether in the public, private or not-for-profit sectors. The extent of application of these requirements depends on the factors specified in 4.1, 4.2 and 4.5.

Why we need to do so?

Companies that have good Anti-bribery management systems will have a better competitive advantage beyond meeting any compliance obligation. It’s also benefits from risk reduction, cost savings and sustainable growth.

Here’s are few reasons why we need to implement the anti-bribery management system and what’s the benefits:

• Anti-bribery and transparency drive performance.

This anti-bribery activities have been consistently seen as measures correlated with good company performance. With a good anti-bribery management system implies that the company has reliable and measurable indicators in place to track internal operations.

• Risk Reduction

The implementation of Anti-Bribery Management System helps to prevent monetary fines, loss of contracts, debarment from lucrative markets, criminal liability and/or negative press.

• Sustainable Growth

With the implementation of Anti-Bribery Management System, it will help to attract new customer & talented workforce. A study found that having the anti-bribery programme in place and publicising it is seen as valuable to a company’s brand as it is largely effective in building trust between business and society. Therefore, it will also be motivating employees to be proud of the organisation’s integrity and reputation – and enticing them to work there in the first place.

• Cost Savings- Reducing operational costs.

As a result of anti-corruption programme and corporate transparency, companies gain measurable cost savings in their day-today operations from the following:

Improved internal processes. Detecting operational weaknesses and addressing them result in cost reductions and the prevention of an improper outflow of funds.

Access to preferential treatment. Commercial advantages are offered by public institutions as well as private business partners for companies adopting an anti-corruption and corporate transparency stance. These benefits include reduced procurement costs, favourable payment terms and lower due-diligence requirements, as well as other process optimisations.

Anti Bribery Management System ISO 37001:2016