Navigating with confidence: Australia and New Zealand’s Bribery and Corruption Report 2020
In the wake of COVID-19 and a constricted economy, there is an increased threat of bribery and corruption to New Zealand
businesses.
“As we move to an economic recovery from COVID-19, organisations across New Zealand must lean into ethical standards,
not abandon them,” said Lorinda Kelly, Deloitte Forensic Partner. “The sustainability of their businesses in the
reputation economy is at stake. Decisions made by leaders today will affect their organisations long after the crisis is
over.”
Deloitte’s Bribery and Corruption Report 2020 shares seven key insights from our anonymous survey of Australasian risk
leaders. These findings help local public, private and not-for-profit organisations determine what they need to do next
to arrive at anti-bribery and corruption resilience and navigate with confidence through the disruption caused by
COVID-19.
The survey’s key findings include:
• One in 20 Australasian organisations have unclear approaches to bribery which do not specify ‘no tolerance’. This is
causing significant vulnerabilities among a handful of Australasian organisations.
• Australasian organisations worry more about their people receiving than paying bribes – but to create truly resilient
controls, organisations must accept there is a risk of both.
• More than half (56%) of respondents thought undisclosed conflicts of interest are one of the top three risks.
Technology can, and should, be used to identify this risk proactively.
• Data Analytics is still in the hands of early adopters. Remarkably, given the breadth of available technology, only 9%
of respondents with known incidents use detection data analytics.
• 35% of respondents reported that they had suffered a bribery or corruption incident in the past 5 years – and 17% in
the past 12 months.
“Each crisis brings an increase in the threat of bribery, corruption and fraud,” said Kelly. “As we look to recover from
the health and economic effects of COVID-19 the importance of our country’s international reputation as a stable and
safe place to do business should not be underestimated. The Deloitte Bribery and Corruption survey 2020 identifies key
areas of vulnerability and offers organisations ways of mitigating them. We would benefit from heeding the advice within
this report in order to ensure New Zealand remains an attractive location from which to do business.”
The official launch of the Deloitte Bribery and Corruption 2020 report will be held via a webinar. This event will
explore how Australian and New Zealand organisations perceive these risks and how they are preventing, detecting and
responding to them at home and abroad – as well as discuss insights around how organisations can stay one step ahead.
The webinar will be hosted by Lorinda Kelly and feature: Fiona Tregonning, Special Counsel, Minter Ellison Rudd Watts,
Steven Garrett, Head of Compliance, The Warehouse Group and Graham Gill, General Manager, Evaluation and Intelligence,
The Serious Fraud Office.
To register for the webinar, please click here.
To view the full report, please click here.