New York: The effectiveness and efficacy of India's anti-corruption law to tackle graft in government agencies and public sector businesses came up for discussion during a legal meet here. The seminar was organised by New York State Bar Association and Paris-based Internationale des Avocats (UIA – International Association of Lawyers) held New York City on Wednesday.
The two-day seminar - Global Integrity Challenges for Enterprise Management & Anti-corruption and Anti-money Laundering – was attended by corporate attorneys from many part of the world. R Shunmugasundaram, a Senior Advocate of Supreme Court of India and a former Member of Parliament - Rajya Sabha - was the only delegate to attend from India. Shunmugasundaram said anti-bribery, anti-corruption and the expectation of fair and ethical business practices from private sector is a hot topic in today's world-wide political, economic and confidence crises.
The forum provided comprehensive overview of the current situation in the US, Europe and Latin America on monitoring integrity – including corruption – risks companies are facing, handling internal audits and assessing and treating unwelcome findings. Issues such as anti-corruption laws of other countries such as the UK Bribery Act, the Indian Prevention of Corruption Act, the Chinese Anti-unfair Competition Act, as well as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Anti-Bribery Convention came up and the panelists discussed how cooperation among prosecutors in countries across the globe has led to better coordinated prosecution of bribery, he added.
The laws are applicable only to corrupt practices of public servants and those indulging in same crime in private sector often tend to escape from anti-corruption legislation due to loopholes in the law as in the case of Sathyam Computers. The idea is to evolve a consensus on how anti- corruption laws can be invoked on an individual in private sector indulging in financial crime including money-laundering that has a tumbling effect on the national economy and innocent share holders besides the legal system itself, he said. The US has stringent laws in place for its registered corporate entities indulging in corrupt practices offshore and hands in stringent punishment.
