All you need to know about ISO 37001: Post scriptum

Answering ISO Critics

 

Jean-Pierre Méan

By Jean-Pierre Méan 
Published on Tuesday February 20, 2018

ISO 37001 has been generally well received and considered as an important step forward in fighting corruption globally. However, several critics, especially in the United States, have expressed doubts about the usefulness of the new Standard.

One of the points raised is that ISO 37001 is   deficient because it does not include some practices included in other instruments.This point has been cleared by Rick Messick in a blog posted on GAB The Global Anticorruption Blog which includes a spreadsheet comparing ISO 37001 with the US Federal Sentencing Guidelines 2016 and the Anti-Corruption Ethics and Compliance Handbook for Business issued in 2013 by the OECD, UNODC and the World Bank. His conclusion is that there is little difference between these instruments. Indeed, ISO 37001 appears to even go a step beyond the Sentencing Guidelines in some areas.

Another argument that has been made is that ISO is not the law, meaning that the Standard is not likely to play a role when prosecutors and regulators take into account an organization compliance program to determine whether a corporate defense should apply or not.

While it is correct that ISO is not law and shall not constitute « per se » a defense against prosecution, it can hardly be ignored when examining whether an organization has put in place adequate measures or made reasonable efforts to prevent bribery. It will also serve as a global reference (including for prosecutors or judges) of good anti-bribery practices since it builds on other instruments which have preceded it.

Finally, it has been argued that there was a lack of statistical evidence to prove that the implementation of ISO 37001 would be effective in fighting bribery.

This applies actually to all instruments that have been developed to combat corruption in organizations, and not just to ISO 37001. However, looking back over the last decades, although there may not be any statistical data, there is no doubt that there has been a material change in the attitude towards bribery and that this change is not only due to the fear of prosecution since the number of cases that are prosecuted remains a very small (albeit increasing) percentage of all instances of bribery.

There is one argument raised by ISO critics that does deserve further consideration. It relates to certification and the organizations carrying it out. Most of the some 50 certifications that have taken place worldwide so far were executed by non-accredited organizations. This is not prohibited nor illegal. However, non-accredited organizations are not subject to the same supervision of theirs and their auditors’ skills and competencies as accredited organizations are. While some of these non-accredited organizations have initiated the (tedious) accreditation procedure, others have not and probably do not intend to; it is then not possible to assess the value of their certifications.

 

 

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