OECD slams Iceland on bribery

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has severely criticised Iceland’s efforts to clamp down on bribery of foreign officials and to implement the 2011 OECD Convention governing the issue.

Little progress

Five years ago, the OECD Working Group on Bribery made seventeen specific recommendations for Iceland aimed at stamping out foreign bribery. By 2012, Iceland had successfully implemented just two of these recommendations.

Many outstanding points to address

Apart from setting up an Inter-Ministerial Steering Group to handle the matter, the OECD considers that Iceland has since then made little effort to address the outstanding recommendations.

The main criticisms of the OECD Working Group are:

• Bribery of officials in foreign state-owned entities has not been criminalised.
• The maximum penalties against natural persons for foreign bribery have not been raised.
• There are no special investigative techniques available in foreign bribery cases.
• There has been no clarification on the obligation of officials to report foreign bribery.
• There is no legislation specifically protecting private-sector whistle-blowers.
• Iceland has twice failed to respond to formal correspondence from Working Group Chair.

Threat of “additional measures” against Iceland

In view of Iceland’s worrying lack of action in terms of implementing the Convention, the OECD Working Group has demanded a progress report by October 2015. If no significant progress is made by that time, the Working Group has declared it will consider “additional measures”.

The original OECD news item can be seen here.