On the instructions of Head of the Presidential Office and head of the working group Andriy Yermak, Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Smyrnov held a meeting of the working group on developing proposals for Ukraine's participation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions.
The participants of the meeting reviewed the progress of measures aimed at Ukraine's full membership in the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions.
Andriy Smyrnov noted that a great deal of work has been done over the year of the group's existence: a number of public events and roundtables have been held, and trusting relationships have been built with delegates from a number of partner countries in the Working Group. In addition, on the initiative of Ukraine, the Working Group created a new format of interaction with states in the status of participants seeking membership - the so-called Peer learning group, within which each country received a group of mentor states that have completed the path to membership and are now helping us to overcome it faster.
Considerable attention was also paid to the state of development of the necessary draft laws.
The members of the working group discussed the concept of amendments to the legislation on criminal liability of legal entities, as well as on the definition of powers of anti-corruption bodies in the investigation and consideration of international bribery cases. This concept aims to introduce the institution of autonomous criminal liability of legal entities in accordance with the requirements of the OECD Anti-Corruption Convention.
In the future, the changes envisaged by the Convention will be subject to consultation and approval not only by government agencies, but also by the business community.
The participants also considered further steps to implement the OECD Council's recommendation on combating bribery in international business transactions and officially supported export credits. It was stated that, in general, Ukrainian legislation complies with the norms of this recommendation. However, there are some gaps, such as the need to check whether the counterparty company is on the blacklists of international financial organizations. Therefore, this issue will need to be regulated at the legislative level.
The Ministry of Finance was recommended to finalize the legislative changes to prohibit the deductibility of the amount of unlawful benefit from the tax base (tax non-deductibility of bribes) and prepare a draft law for consideration by the Verkhovna Rada. During the summer of 2023, the Ministry of Finance prepared a draft law aimed at taking into account the provisions of the OECD Council's recommendation on tax measures to further combat bribery of foreign officials in international business transactions, but after consultations with the OECD, it was decided to improve and finalize it.
Andriy Smyrnov also emphasized the importance of the Cabinet of Ministers adopting an order on submitting to the Verkhovna Rada the draft law "On Ratification of the Agreement (in the form of an exchange of letters) between the Government of Ukraine and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Joining the Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development" and its adoption by the Parliament as soon as possible.
Finally, the participants discussed the composition of the Ukrainian delegation to the OECD Anti-Bribery Working Group's meeting to be held in mid-October 2023, where the global dialogue of the Working Group will discuss the liability of legal persons, as well as the preparation of the delegation for the December meeting of the Working Group, where the OECD expects to hear a report from Ukraine on its progress towards membership and ratification of the OECD Anti-Corruption Convention.
Following the discussion, the working group decided to accelerate the development of legislative changes, coordinate their provisions with international partners as soon as possible and submit them to the Parliament by the end of this year.
"Today we had a very specific and meaningful meeting, and I propose to record the results in the minutes and use them as a basis for our further work," summarized Andriy Smyrnov.