Tool

Code of conduct, behaviour standards

Statement of principles and values to establish a set of standards on behaviour within an organization.

DESCRIPTION

The code of conduct is a statement of principles and values that establishes a set of expectations and standards for how an organisation, government body, company, affiliated group or individual will behave, including minimal levels of compliance and disciplinary actions for the organisation, its staff, and volunteers.1 A code of conduct should for instance, at minimum, include the organisation´s policies regarding conflicts of interest, giving or accepting gifts and facilitation payments.

PURPOSE & LINK TO INTEGRITY

A code of conduct encourages discussion about ethics and guides employees when dealing with ethical dilemmas, prejudices and grey areas of everyday work and life encounters.2 It helps employees to prevent illicit practices in their daily work. Gifts and entertainment could be offered in order to influence staff in decisions about procurement, contracts or other. The regulation or restriction of gifts and entertainment reduces the risk of staff being manipulated. Conflicts of interest might lead to illicit behaviour if they are not reported and dealt with. It is therefore important that a company’s management and staff knows how to deal with that kind of situations. To set clear rules for the handling of facilitation payments reduces the risk of non-compliance and helps to counter illicit behaviour of public officials.

KEY REQUIREMENTS

  • Do you have other anti-corruption policies in place? Does your code of conduct comply with them? (Also check tool Anti-corruption policy)
  • Does your code of conduct comply with national and international policies on anti-corruption and compliance?

HOW TO

A code of conduct should:2

  • Include values, beliefs and expectations rather than facts
  • Be based on the organisation’s values
  • Be simple but at the same time precise
  • Define what conduct is acceptable and what is not
  • Give examples when appropriate
  • Incorporate opinions from members of the organisation to ensure ownership
  • Be fully disseminated among the staff

A code of conduct should be associated with concrete tools for the implementation of the principles and values stated therein. The organization needs to put continuous efforts in making sure that procedures that are stated in the code of conduct are followed.

A gift policy should be consistent with other aspects of the organisation’s ethics policy in encouraging high standards of personal honesty and integrity. It should set out:3

  • what can be accepted without disclosure
  • what cannot be accepted or given
  • what should be recorded and how
  • how staff can seek further guidance

To maintain the integrity of business relationships and transactions, all employees should be required to declare any actual or perceived conflicts of interest. A standard form for declaration of conflict of interest should be made readily available. There should also be an established procedure for managing declared conflicts of interest, such as requiring the employee with the conflict to withdraw from any involvement in the transaction at issue.4

If company employees are faced with a demand for a facilitation payment, for example in customs or during a company inspection, the following steps should be taken by the employee faced with the demand:5

  1. Ask to see the enabling legislation
  2. Refuse if enabling legislation is not showed
  3. Say no again and refer to the prohibition for facilitation payments in anti-bribery legislation and your company policy
  4. Inform your manager before making the payment or as soon as possible
  5. Keep the amount to a minimum and ask for a receipt
  6. Record the payment in the book keeping system and identify it as a ‘facilitation payment’
  7. Report to the (Compliance) Manager

KEY GUIDING DOCUMENTS

Del Rosario et al., 2011, Anti-Corruption manual for SME

Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, no year, Guidelines for the Development of a code of conduct and ethics for public officers, Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, Kenya

WIN, 2008, Code of Conduct, Water Integrity Network (WIN), Germany

FURTHER  READINGS

SFO, 2012, Facilitation payments, Serious Fraud Office United Kingdom (SFO), www.sfo.gov.uk/bribery—corruption/the-bribery-act/facilitation-payments.aspx, accessed 28.10.2015

BBC, 2011, BBC Guidance – Facilitation Payments: How to resist requests for facilitation payments, BBC United Kingdom, http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/site/Facilitation_payments_guidance_13July2011.pdf, accessed 02.12.2015

BUSINESS ANTI-CORRUPTION PORTAL, Compliance System Guidance, GAN Integrity Solutions, http://www.business-anti-corruption.org/tools/compliance-systems.aspx, Accessed: 03.12.2015

Foster Back, P., 2012, Overcoming the Challenges of Gifts and Invitations Policies, Ethic Intelligence, www.ethic-intelligence.com/experts/149-overcoming-the-challenges-of-gifts-and-invitations-policies, accessed: 02.12.2015

FULL REFERENCES

  1. TI, 2009, The Anti-Corruption Plain Language Guide, Transparency International (TI), Germany
  2. Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, no year, Guidelines for the Development of a code of conduct and ethics for public officers, no year, Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, Kenya
  3. Foster Back, P., 2012, Overcoming the Challenges of Gifts and Invitations Policies, Ethic Intelligence, www.ethic-intelligence.com/experts/149-overcoming-the-challenges-of-gifts-and-invitations-policies, accessed: 02.12.2015
  4. Del Rosario et al., 2011, Anti-Corruption manual for SME
  5. BUSINESS ANTI-CORRUPTION PORTAL, Compliance System Guidance, GAN Integrity Solutions, http://www.business-anti-corruption.org/tools/compliance-systems.aspx, Accessed: 03.12.2015
Last updated 12 April 2019

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