Posted by Annushka on 30 Mar 2011 in Blog, Corruption, Political Risk
The UK Bribery Act, due to come into force in July 2011, is going to affect the way in which every company wholly or partially based in the UK conducts international business. On 30 March 2011, the UK Ministry of Justice has finally published its guidance to this piece of legislation, clarifying government intensions on how the Act is going to be enforced. As expected, the Act is to be significantly more robust than Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and is expected to introduce several innovations on the exiting international anti-bribery legislation. It is going to affect not only the companies with UK presence and their domestic and foreign subcontractors, but also all “associated persons” i.e. those acting on behalf of a company, irrespective of whether they are operating in the UK or outside its borders.
A number of significant innovations on existing legislation have been introduced: in contrast to existing UK procedures, which place emphasis on evidence available for prosecution, in the near future companies could potentially be prosecuted for “failing to prevent giving or receiving a bribe” and making, or attempting to make, “facilitation payments to foreign officials”. Additionally, and in contrast to FCPA, the new bill significantly broadens the scope of existing laws by covering non-governmental officials (i.e. private citizens)
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Posted by Annushka on 17 Mar 2011 in Blog, Central Asia, Corruption, Political Risk
In what may be one of the strongest signs of the deteriorating human rights situation in Uzbekistan, the country’s government forced the closure of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) office in the country this week. In response to its first ever ‘eviction’ from a country, the HRW said that it will “not be silenced” and expressed its commitment to continue its activity despite the government’s apparent unwillingness to tolerate any criticism of its poor human rights record, particularly when it comes to suppression of the opposition and child labour. Evidence of the government’s human rights relations is, sadly, abundant and does not end with the horrors of the Andijan massacre: in early 2011, the independent group Human Rights Defenders contended that there have been at least thirty-nine torture-related deaths in Uzbekistan jails during 2010, due to the growing crackdown on religious groups and government critics.
As we wrote in this week’s Political Risk and Global Review, the expulsion of HRW, which has in fact been variously harassed by the Uzbek authorities and prevented from carrying out overt monitoring of abuses since 2004, was accompanied by a series of other deeply disturbing developments. On 14 March 2011, a major Russian telecoms operator reported that the Uzbek government ordered them to monitor all sms (text) messages sent by the clients, passing any information deemed “suspicious” to the security services. The operators were also notified that they may be required to switch off the services at the first request of the government, else risk expulsion from the country. And given the history of the Uzbek government’s experience in censorship, there is little doubt that these warnings are going to be taken seriously.
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Posted by Annushka on 8 Mar 2011 in Blog, Eastern Europe, Political Risk
Today the Romanian government faces yet another no-confidence vote on an issue which profoundly affects Romanian workforce. Below is an extract of analysis from 01 March 2011, taken from our Political Risk and Security Review. To receive the review, which provides condensed, easily digestible analysis on the risks arising from both the political stability of a country or region and the implications for business of a country’s macroeconomic and social policies, contact alice.boyes@inkerman.com. This week’s issue is out today!
NEW LABOUR CODE TO PROMPT NO CONFIDENCE VOTE AND MASS STRIKES IN ROMANIA
(Deterioration: Political Instability, Mass Protests, Corruption)
Adoption of a new Labour Code, which is supposedly designed to combat the labour black market, make the country’s labour relations more equitable and its economy more efficient, is set to continue presenting significant problems for the Romanian government. The bill was adopted without consultation on 28 February 2011, to accelerate reform, but at the same time this move prompted the opposition to seek a confidence vote
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Posted by Annushka on 3 Mar 2011 in Blog, Central Asia, Elections, Political Risk
Today may prove to be a historic day for Kazakhstan, but not because the ‘election campaign’ has officiously kicked off in Astana. After all, we all already know that the incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the country for some twenty-one years, is going to win on 03 April 2011. In some respects, predictive political risk analysis for Central Asia is a piece of cake: the notoriously press friendly Nazarbaev’s advisor Ermukhammet Ertisbaev has already announced that the president is going to obtain around 95,9% of the votes (and given the Kazakh electoral mechanism, there is absolutely no reason to disbelieve his ‘vision’, plus or minus two percent).
The real reason why today matters is far less conspicuous than Nazarbaev’s rapturous megalomania, but it is much more important for social stability in Kazakhstan, where the population is hit hard by the relentless hikes in the prices for basic goods. Today is the day the Amendments to the State Regulations on Trade come into force.
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Posted by Annushka on 14 Feb 2011 in Blog, Corruption, Eastern Europe, Organised Crime, Political Risk
Just when one could be forgiven for thinking that the latest corruption scandal surrounding the Bulgarian government was about to be consigned to oblivion, last week demonstrated that it set in motion forces that are likely to further undermine political stability in the country for some time to come. The bête noir haunting Bulgaria’s establishment, dubbed ‘Tapegate’ by the press, came in the form of electronically eavesdropped phone calls, which featured candid conversations between Customs Agency chief Vanyo Tanov, Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov and Deputy Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov. They also notably implicated the country’s Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, who was heard blatantly abusing his position of power and asking for one of his football pals to be re-appointed as a customs official at Sofia airport, as well as pledging his support for a brewery that lacked a valid license. The revelations about corruption at the highest levels of government ensured that Borisov’s personal popularity plunged by 14%, and provoked a ‘vote of confidence’ in the Bulgarian parliament, which the latter survived in late January 2011. All things considered, this was a relatively successful outcome for the Prime Minister and the ruling GERB party, but it would seem that the political denouenement of the scandal in Bulgaria is yet to unravel.
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