OECD 'Seriously Concerned' About How Turkey Investigates Bribery

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said it is “seriously concerned” about Turkey's ability to detect and investigate foreign bribery, according to a report published on its website on Thursday.

The report directly mentioned the corruption investigations that went public in December of last year, referencing the controversial decisions to reassign large numbers of police officers and members of the judiciary and the passage of legislation that increased the powers of the executive branch over the judicial. It also said that it was concerned that political interference had impacted its enforcement of foreign bribery.

The OECD said the report is also based on information obtained by an evaluation team from the organization during its four-day on-site visit to Ankara and İstanbul on May 13-16. The OECD team met representatives of Turkey's public and private sectors, media and civil society during this visit, the organization says.

Starting in December of 2013, Turkey experienced a high-profile investigation into foreign and domestic bribery, money laundering and gold smuggling, implicating officials at the highest levels of government, the OECD report recalled, adding, “The Turkish government's response to the domestic bribery investigation has been largely criticized in international and Turkish media, as well as by several international organizations.”

Noting that, in the beginning of 2014, the government was reported as having reassigned several hundred police officers, as well as a number of judges and prosecutors, including those originally involved in the December 2013 investigation, the OECD said, “Shortly thereafter, the Turkish Parliament also passed a controversial law that increased the power of the executive over the judiciary, although some controversial provisions were subsequently declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court.”

“Concerns nevertheless remain that political influence over decisions to assign and discipline prosecutors could adversely impact foreign bribery investigations and prosecutions,” the report emphasized.

The OECD also recalled that on Sept. 1, the prosecutor newly assigned to the December 2013 investigation issued a verdict of non-prosecution against 96 persons, adding, however, “The chief of Turkey's Constitutional Court expressed the view that these large-scale reassignments were undermining the independence of the judiciary.”

Following the onsite visit, Turkey indicated that the investigations into the domestic bribery case were still ongoing and that the reassignments had not affected the conduct of proceedings, the report added.

“During the on-site visit, representatives of civil society and private sector lawyers voiced serious concerns regarding the independent exercise of justice in Turkey, and expressed the view that the wave of reassignments was ‘not normal or ordinary' and that the reshuffling had been ‘extreme',” the OECD said.

Among the recommendations offered by the OECD, of which Turkey is a member, were that the country should “significantly increase efforts to proactively detect and investigate foreign bribery allegations” and “enforce its foreign bribery offenses against companies, notably by fixing deficiencies in its corporate liability framework.” It also urged the country to “maintain the independence of prosecutors and ensure that concerns of a political nature do not affect foreign bribery investigations and prosecutions, provide law enforcement with adequate resources and expertise to enforce foreign bribery laws and better protect whistleblowers in both the public and private sectors to encourage reporting of foreign bribery.”

The OECD added in its report that they asked Turkish authorities to report in writing in one year -- until October 2015 -- on a number of recommendations, including progress made to proactively detect, investigate and prosecute foreign bribery, including against legal persons; steps taken to rectify deficiencies in the legal framework for corporate liability and to enforce it; and steps taken to ensure that foreign bribery investigations and prosecutions are not influenced by political considerations.

The OECD working group also invited the government to submit a written follow-up report on the implementation of all the recommendations and follow-up issues within two years, that is, until October 2016.
Turkey fails to tackle corruption in foreign trade
Big exporting nations, including Turkey, are breaking their pledge to fight corruption in global trade, with more than half of the countries that have signed an anti-bribery convention failing to implement it, a report by Transparency International (TI) showed on Thursday.

Corruption in trade is undermining global development, as contracts do not go to the best suppliers, prices are being inflated to cover bribe payments, environmental requirements are not being enforced and taxes are not being collected, TI said. To tackle this problem, the OECD adopted the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions in 1997. Widely seen as an important instrument in the drive to curb global corruption, the treaty requires the 41 signatory countries to make foreign bribery a crime for which individuals and enterprises can be made responsible.

These countries are responsible for around two-thirds of global exports and almost 90 percent of total foreign direct investment (FDI) outflows. However, 22 signatories have done little or nothing to enforce the treaty, said TI's annual report on the issue. "As a result, the convention's fundamental goal of creating a corruption-free level playing field for global trade is still far from being achieved," the report said.

Among those with little or no enforcement were Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Russia, Spain, Belgium, Mexico, Brazil, Ireland, Poland, Turkey, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Chile and Israel, said TI.

“Regional trade activity by Turkish companies has markedly increased, including exceptional growth in some high-corruption-risk destinations such as Libya and Iran where trade activity almost tripled from 2011 to 2012,” the OECD separately noted on Thursday. Underlining that there has been a substantial increase in the volume of business conducted by Turkish companies since 2002 in the construction and contracting sectors, particularly in Eurasia, the organization added: “The five countries in which Turkish construction firms are most active all scored less than 30 in a 2013 Transparency International report. … The recent growth of Turkish conglomerates and their increased activity in high corruption-risk areas necessitates more targeted awareness-raising.” (Cihan/Today’s Zaman)