Page 4 - CORRUPTION LATAM

MONTT GROUP MAGAZINE - 2024
www.MONTTGROUP.cOM
editoriaL
Compliance: Esperanza al Final del Camino
It is true that our Region has become one of the most corrupt areas in the world, according to recent reports from organizations such as, among others, Transparency International.
In many countries of the subcontinent there is a kind of widespread impunity and total lack of independence of the Judiciary, something that instead of improving over time worsens year after year. Transparency International itself maintains that at least two-thirds of Latin American countries, equivalent to 66 percent, have an average rating of 43 points out of 100, where, as it is known, zero is the most corrupt and 100 the least.
The subcontinent is stuck in the fight against corruption and, as some experts have said, this scourge is eating away all the Region.
This is, without a doubt, an urgent problem to solve, otherwise what lies ahead is a dangerous future: more delinquency and organized crime; greater citizen unrest and dangers for democratic life; increase in inequality and political polarization; worse economic performance and a sustained rise in poverty rates, which are already high in all our territories.
Today, corruption, in many cases, is part of Latin American institutions and culture. Its impact on society is brutal. At the macro level, according to United Nations figures, of the approximately US$13 trillion in global public spending, up to 25 percent is lost to corruption. At the micro level, a forced bribe, for example, could mean that low-income parents are unable to pay school fees or adequately feed their family. There are countries like Mexico where up to a third of workers’ income is spent on bribes.
A greater degree of corruption implies in the long run a growing deficiency in public services, since the corrupt keep the best part of the funds destined to improve drinking water, health, education, energy, roads systems, that is in general, everything that offers well-being and true development to a nation. Security is one of the first areas to suffer, given the often close relationships established between criminal groups and public officials.
But although this is a widespread plague, it is not only the prerogative
of this Region of the world; it is a global phenomenon, which encompasses, to a greater or lesser extent, even the nations that occupy the best Indexes of the international organizations that measure this situation. Let us remember that the worst corruption scandals regarding money laundering are occurring in the banks of the European Union, in Denmark, considered one of the least corrupt countries in the world; Germany and Sweden. It is also happening in countries like Switzerland, which has a score of 82 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, and that is currently facing an intense battle against persistent money laundering in its legendary banks, where wealthy groups of that continent easily manage their dubious operations, while some financial entities act as intermediaries.
There is still much to do regarding corruption in the world and, of course, in our subcontinent.
However, with everything and despite everything, an opportunity is glimpsed in the Region, a light of hope that at first was barely visible, so faint that it seemed more like a mirage than a reality. But today that luminosity has intensified more and more and is beginning to be observed as a real possibility.
I am referring to the new legal system that is emerging in the private sector thanks to the issuance of laws that favour regulatory compliance. As defined by the World Compliance Association, this concept refers to the set of procedures and good practices that entities implement for the identification and classification of the operational and legal risks they face. Additionally, compliance has to do with integrity, transparency and, of course, with risk management, the risk of corruption, specifically.
That is, in other words, compliance is emerging as an effective model to combat corruption, returning to society, albeit slowly, a kind of subordination to the legal order, the only way for nations to advance in order and peace towards the development. In this way, something key to progress and good coexistence would be vindicated, the rule of law, which in some countries of the subcontinent is being openly questioned. Yes, because compliance is much more than abiding by a rule, since it can constitute a truly virtuous business culture that respects current regulations and creates prevention models distancing form the risks of corporate crime.
In most of the countries where the the Law of Criminal Liability of Legal Entities and other complementary provisions were enacted, the private sector has begun a journey towards integrity. With all these regulations, companies can respond criminally for the acts of their employees. Likewise, a crime prevention model is created, a mechanism that consists of a set of several tools and control activities that organizations can carry out on the processes or activities exposed to the risks of committing the crimes indicated by this law.
This is something that is happening in many countries in the Region, where Chile stands out, since it was the first to enact a law of this nature, but Brazil is leading, thanks to the anti-corruption investigation it carried out on the occasion of one of the biggest scandals of recent decades, Lava Jato. The rest of the countries are moving forward with different degrees of speed and difficulty, but they are all projecting themselves, thanks to these laws, into the future.
In a world often dominated by violence and irrationality, it is comforting to witness a process where it is justice and its regulations that are shaping and guiding social processes, although this is still incipient.
Santiago Montt, Montt Group President
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