Top firms face bribery, corruption risk

Many of New Zealand's top listed companies lack policies on preventing bribery and corruption and are falling behind international best practice on the issue, Transparency International New Zealand says.

The organisation's As Good As We Are Perceived? report, released today, assessed NZX50 companies' policies preventing corrupt acts.

The report's contents were developed from data collected by an Australian think tank.

Only 44 percent of NZX50 companies had specific policies preventing bribery, compared with 72 percent in the UK, 69 percent in the United States and 50 percent in Europe as a whole.

Transparency International New Zealand chairman Gerald McGhie said New Zealand had an excellent record as a country relatively free from bribery and corruption, but ``complacency about our performance has the potential to damage New Zealand's reputation''. 

Only 18 percent of NZX50 companies had policies regulating facilitation payments, while 24 percent of companies failed to meet a limited rating for codes of conduct and ethics.

Twenty NZX50 companies were operating in high-risk bribery and corruption sectors.

Nearly half of those companies had no policy guidelines for dealing with corruption or bribery and fewer than half provided training for employees on the company's code of conduct.

``A significant number of our NZX50 companies do not adequately recognise the seriousness or impact of corruption,'' Mr McGhie said.

- NZPA