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UK increases enforcement of foreign bribery, but concerns remain about transparency and resources

The United Kingdom has significantly boosted its foreign bribery enforcement efforts but needs to be more transparent when resolving cases.




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Consultation on collective action in the fight against foreign bribery

This Working Group on Bribery consultation with the private sector and civil society focused on collective action in the fight against foreign bribery.




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OECD seriously concerned by absence of foreign bribery convictions in Spain

Spain’s enforcement of its foreign bribery laws has been extremely low, with not a single prosecution out of only seven investigations in 13 years since joining the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. Spain must vigorously pursue foreign bribery allegations and strengthen its legal framework for fighting bribery by addressing gaps in its Penal Code, says a new OECD report.




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OECD takes aim at software technologies used by businesses to evade taxes

The OECD has released a study to help all countries understand and address the risks of sales suppression software. It describes some of the most common electronic sales suppression techniques and shows how these methods can be detected by tax auditors. The report also considers the approaches already adopted by countries in combating this risk and highlights a number of best practices.




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Regrettably low awareness in the private sector is an obstacle to the fight against foreign bribery in the Czech Republic

The Czech government must urgently engage with the private sector to raise awareness, says a new OECD report. The awareness of the Czech foreign bribery offence remains regrettably low among companies, despite the recent adoption of a comprehensive corporate liability regime that holds Czech companies liable for this crime.




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OECD Working Group on Bribery Elects New Chair

The OECD Working Group on Bribery has designated Slovenian national Drago Kos to serve as the Group’s new Chair.




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Despite certain progress, the OECD remains concerned with Russia’s compliance with key provisions of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention

Russia has yet to address key provisions of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, which entered into force in Russia in April 2012. It has not yet fully implemented recommendations for strengthening its framework for combating foreign bribery and should be more proactive in detecting, investigating and prosecuting foreign bribery cases.




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Azerbaijan should be more proactive against corruption

Azerbaijan must do more to enforce recently introduced anti-corruption laws and to ensure law enforcement has the resources to prosecute complex corruption crimes, says a new OECD report.




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Lack of enforcement jeopardises South Africa’s fight against foreign bribery; OECD concerned that political and economic considerations may be an influence

South Africa must take urgent steps to proactively investigate and prosecute foreign bribery. No foreign bribery cases have been prosecuted since South Africa joined the Convention in 2007. The 4 on-going investigations – out of only 10 allegations that have surfaced to date – are also far from reaching the prosecution stage, according to a new report by the OECD Working Group on Bribery.




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Tajikistan should step up its fight against corruption

Tajikistan needs to step up its fight against corruption and turn political declarations of commitment into action, says a new OECD report.




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Slovenia must urgently prioritise the fight against foreign bribery, says OECD

Serious steps must be taken by Slovenia to ensure that it effectively detects, investigates and prosecutes allegations of transnational bribery.




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Statement of OECD Working Group on Bribery on Spain’s efforts to amend its Penal Code and to enforce its foreign bribery offence

The OECD Working Group on Bribery supports Spain’s efforts to further reform its Penal Code to bring its anti-bribery law into line with its international obligations under the OECD Convention on Combatting Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.




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OECD bolsters relationship with Ukraine

The 34-member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development welcomed a Memorandum of Understanding between the OECD and Ukraine which will help Ukraine’s efforts to tackle corruption, strengthen its tax system and promote competitiveness.




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Kazakhstan must sharpen its strategy and raise impact of its anti-corruption measures

Kazakhstan’s new anti-corruption strategy must be better defined, involving key stakeholders, with targeted actions and goals that address the key corruption challenges facing the country, says a new OECD report by the Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan (IAP).




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Scale of international bribery laid bare by new OECD report

Most international bribes are paid by large companies, usually with the knowledge of senior management, according to new OECD analysis of the cost of foreign bribery and corruption.




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Spain has strong measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing but improvements needed, says FATF

Spain has created a strong system to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, but improvements are needed in certain key areas, according to a new report by the Financial Action Task Force.




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Spain has strong measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing but improvements needed, says FATF

Spain has created a strong system to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, but improvements are needed in certain key areas, according to a new report by the Financial Action Task Force.




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OECD welcomes measures adopted by Spain to advance integrity

The OECD welcomed the legislative package on democratic regeneration recently approved by the Spanish Parliament in order to fight corruption and promote both integrity and transparency in political activities and institutions.




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Ukraine must enforce its new anti-corruption strategy and legislation

Widespread corruption was one of the main reasons that led to the change of the political regime in Ukraine in 2014. The new administration pledged to fight corruption, a challenging task in the current context of the economic crisis and military conflict in the East of the country.




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OECD encouraged by Israel’s recent investigative activity, but remains seriously concerned with overall efforts to enforce foreign bribery laws

Israel is not sufficiently proactive in detecting and investigating foreign bribery, with no prosecutions over the past 7 years, despite 14 allegations of foreign bribery involving Israeli individuals or companies. The OECD Working Group on Bribery is, however, encouraged by the recently-opened investigations, and will pay close attention to how these evolve.




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Latvia’s fight against foreign bribery overshadowed by enforcement weaknesses

Latvia has improved its laws since acceding to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention in 2014. Yet serious personnel issues until recently as well as negative government commentary concerning KNAB, Latvia’s anti-corruption law enforcement agency, have cast doubts over its capacity to enforce those laws.




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International Anti-Corruption Day Statement by Drago Kos, Chair of the OECD Working Group on Bribery

International Anti-Corruption Day provides us all with a unique opportunity to reflect on the progress we have made over the past year in the global fight against corruption, but also to think about the work that remains to be done in the years ahead.




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Tackling policy fragmentation: the key to getting onto a path of rapid and sustainable productivity growth

Further structural reforms are needed to help the business sector boost productivity growth and overcome the key challenges of sluggish investment in advanced economies and excess capacity in emerging economies, according to a new OECD report.




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Ukraine must eliminate obstacles to effectively implement anti-corruption reforms

Ukraine has made considerable progress in the area of anti-corruption reform but faces significant challenges to implement some important tools for combating corruption, according to a recent OECD report.




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Azerbaijan should take strong and comprehensive measures to fight entrenched corruption

Azerbaijan has made progress in preventing corruption in several sectors, such as public services delivery, traffic police and public education, and reforms have started in customs and business licencing. However, serious and complex corruption challenges have yet to be tackled, says a new OECD report.




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New OECD guidance aims to reduce corruption in aid sector

New international guidance on fighting corruption in the development sector goes into effect today, backed by more than 40 countries, with progress on agreed recommendations to be monitored by the OECD Working Group on Bribery.




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OECD and IBA join forces to develop practice guidance to equip lawyers in fight against corruption

Following on from the London Anti-Corruption Summit which took place in May 2016, the OECD and the International Bar Association (IBA) have agreed to form a task force to develop professional conduct standards and practice guidance for lawyers involved in establishing and advising on international commercial structures and recommended actions for governments.




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UK has made strong progress fighting foreign bribery, but uncertainty over Serious Fraud Office role remains

Foreign bribery enforcement in the UK has increased significantly since 2012 notably thanks to the pragmatic and effective approach taken by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to investigate and resolve foreign bribery cases.




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Can better international co-operation help build a fairer global economy?

Drawing on data presented in the 2017 OECD Business and Finance Outlook, this article looks at some of the forces influencing recent economic developments and asks what can be done to ensure a “fairer” global economy.




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Training on asset recovery for Ukraine's Asset Recovery and Management Agency

Kyiv, 24-27 July 2017: The OECD, within the framework of the OECD Anti-Corruption Project for Ukraine, and in cooperation with Ukraine's Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) and the Council of Europe (CoE), has conducted a four-day training for the first recruits of ARMA.




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Ukraine should boost anti-corruption reforms to meet the demands of citizens

Ukraine has achieved remarkable progress on anti-corruption reforms since the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. Despite these major achievements, there is a serious risk of backsliding on reforms, according to a new OECD report.




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Statement by Drago Kos, Chair of the OECD Working Group on Bribery, on the 20th anniversary of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention

Corruption facilitates some of the most important global threats of our time, such as terrorism, climate change and the refugee crisis. It’s vital that we ramp up our fight to contain this threat to our economies and societies.




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Call for candidates: OECD Working Party on Responsible Business Conduct seeks a new Chair

29/03/2018 - The OECD Working Party on Responsible Business Conduct is seeking candidates for a new Chairs to assist in implementing and promoting the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.




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Ukraine anti-corruption project

This project supports Ukraine in its fight against corruption with a view to to strengthening the country's legal and institutional capacity to effectively detect, investigate and prosecute high-profile and complex corruption.




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Germany’s strong anti-bribery enforcement against individuals needs to be matched by comparably strong enforcement against companies

Germany continues to demonstrate a high level of anti-bribery enforcement having prosecuted and sanctioned 328 individuals and 18 companies in foreign bribery cases since 1999.




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Armenia should take vigorous measures against entrenched corruption

Armenia should take vigorous measures to tackle entrenched corruption and widespread conflict of interest, according to a new OECD report.




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Overcoming School Failure: Spanish National Report May 2011

The objective of this report is to describe the progress of the Spanish education system as regards policies towards equity and inclusion and towards reducing school failure in the past five years, taking as a reference the OECD’s Report (2007): No more failures: Ten Steps to Equity in Education.




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Overcoming School Failure: Background Report for the Czech Republic June 2011

The Czech Republic has a long tradition of a highly differentiated education system. Tracking occurs very early.




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Education at a Glance 2011: Country note – Spain

The 2011 edition of Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators enables countries to see themselves in the light of other countries’ performance.




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Equity and Quality in Education: Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools - Spotlight Report: Spain

This spotlight report draws upon the OECD report Equity and Quality in Education: Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools.




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Education: OECD calls for reform of postsecondary vocational education and training in Denmark

Denmark should build on the strengths of its vocational and educational training programme to ensure that young people enter the labour market with the skills companies need and to meet the national goal of having 60% of young people enter higher education by 2020, according to a new OECD report.




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Education at a Glance 2012: Country Notes - Spain

Virtually all three-year-olds in Spain are enrolled in school, most of them in public institutions. Spain’s expenditure on pre-primary education (for public institutions) amounts to 0.9% of GDP, compared to the OECD average of 0.5% of the combined GDP.




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Education at a Glance 2012: Country Notes - Spain (Spanish)

Education at a Glance 2012: Country Notes - Spain (Spanish)




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Education spending rising but access to higher education remains unequal in most countries, says OECD

Governments should increase investment in early childhood programmes and maintain reasonable costs for higher education in order to reduce inequality, boost social mobility and improve people’s employment prospects, according to a new OECD report.




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Are countries educating to protect against unemployment? by Dirk Van Damme

More people than even before now reach a level of educational attainment equivalent to upper secondary education. The available evidence is very conclusive: this level of education can be considered a minimum level to ensure a job and a living wage.




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Education: The best protection against an economic crisis (OECD Education Today Blog)

The insight that education is valuable both to individuals and to countries is not new. Using continuously improving data and statistical tools, we have come to understand and appreciate the magnitude of education’s impact on employment, income, health and life opportunities in general.




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OECD report on vocational training in Austria calls for continued diversity and increased co-ordination

There are few OECD countries where vocational education and training (VET) is held in such high regard or takes so many forms as in Austria. Some 60 percent of young Austrians aged between 25 and 34 have completed a VET course below tertiary level (vocational school or technical college).




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Advanced vocational training in Germany provides sought-after skills but needs compulsory standards in teaching and examination

The transition from school to work in Germany is remarkably smooth. An excellent vocational education and training (VET) system ensures that young people are well-prepared when they enter the labour market and can find jobs that match their qualifications.




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OECD: Postsecondary education key to maintaining global standing of U.S. workforce

The United States should improve postsecondary career and technical training provisions to help students transition smoothly into education programs and the labor market, according to a new OECD report published today.




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OECD: Postsecondary education key to maintaining global standing of U.S. workforce

09/07/2013 - The United States should improve postsecondary career and technical training provisions to help students transition smoothly into education programs and the labor market, according to a new OECD report published today.