https://www.prensa.com/politica/las-cuatro-lecciones-del-caso-odebrecht/

It was a Wednesday, December 21, four days of Christmas. It was the year 2016.

The news, published on most information websites in the region, shook the business, political and judicial world: the US State Department revealed that executives of the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht confessed that they had as a practice to bribe and pay money to presidents, ex-presidents and government officials from 12 countries, including Panama, to win public contracts with millionaires.

Three years after uncovering that scandal, what lessons remain?

Arturo Carvajal, consultant and partner of the professional services firm KPMG, has studied ethics in the business field and the phenomenon of corruption.

REPORT

Panama is in the 96th position of the Global Corruption Perception Index based on 183 countries with a rating of 37 on a scale where the lowest places represent more corruption.

He argues that this is the evil of the century, that devours institutions and has become the most serious threat of governance, because corruption produces inefficiency, leads to loss of resources, creates a weak business climate and degenerates into increasing criminality.

But how to avoid corruption? During a recent forum on the subject, Carvajal listed the lessons left by the Odebrecht case , which is worth reviewing on December 9, when the International Day against Corruption is celebrated , a date established by the United Nations Organization on the 31st of October 2003 with the purpose of raising awareness of the problem, promoting and strengthening measures to prevent and combat it effectively.

We share here the four teachings that, according to Carvajal, the Odebrecht has left:

1. The importance of the extraterritoriality of anti-bribery laws. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) as an anti-corruption rule of the United States Government has the virtue of extending jurisdiction in anti-bribery matters beyond its borders when certain circumstances arise. The advantages of a territorially extended jurisdiction are especially powerful if examined from the perspective that many countries have difficulty fighting their own corruption.

2. The regulation of the figure of the informer in criminal proceedings. The possibility that crime evidence is obtained from within the criminal nucleus is an effective instrument that accelerates the proceedings.

3. Strengthening the criminal liability regime of the legal entity. Corporate criminal responsibility, and its alter ego , crime prevention programs ( compliance ) are an excellent anti-corruption instrument. But it is also true that there are ways to bypass the controls themselves or generate compliance models that support the role of a judicial file.

4. An adequate classification of accounting opacity. The key that is hidden in companies under systematized corruption is accounting opacity, double accounting, unregistered payments, hidden collections, hidden accounts, etc. Adequate anti-corruption legislation should typify this type of behavior regardless of whether or not bribery is accredited.