Companies told to ensure anti-corruption compliance programmes are in place

Some companies would prefer to deal with incidences of corruption internally rather than disclose details to outside authorities.

That is according to a survey of 329 executives, conducted by Deloitte, which revealed that of those questioned 41 per cent would rather keep such matters in-house.

Some 75 per cent of executives polled said they believed a zero-tolerance policy should be adopted to deal with corruption in the workplace and said they were in favour of disciplinary measures including firing corrupt employees.

Commenting on the reasons that corruption occurs, Nic Carrington, forensic and dispute services partner at Deloitte said: "Straightforward lapses and overrides of internal controls are frequently at the heart of corruption cases.

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"Companies need to ensure that their anti corruption compliance programmes are not just sitting on the office bookshelves of executive management, but that rather line staff are putting them into practice on a daily basis."

Mr Carrington said that the UK is moving towards a system which values voluntary disclosure of corruption incidents.