Business

Tuesday July 21, 2009

Forum: Official integrity framework needed


It is a criterion for economic development and corporate governance

KUALA LUMPUR: The private sector needs to work under an official integrity framework for economic development and corporate governance to be advanced, according to panellists at a forum on integrity and compliance.

Siemens AG vice-president (corporate legal and compliance) Sabine Zindera said it was a fallacy that a business must adopt some corrupt practices to make money.

Citing Siemens’ history, Zindera said the company was involved in a corruption scandal in 2006 which resulted in an over 2-bil euro lawsuit, culminating in the company turning over a new leaf and incorporating greater transparency and accountability processes.

Today, Siemens is a leader in corporate compliance and transparency as ranked by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, scoring a rare maximum rating of 100% for Risk & Crisis Management and a rating of 93% for Codes of Conduct/Compliance in a global survey by Dow Jones in 2008, according to Zindera.

“We created new processes, including a board level corporate disciplinary committee to ensure fast and decisive action taken in all instances of non-compliance, trained employees on compliance, replaced most of the top management and hired outside, and made it clear only clean business was (for) Siemens,” she said yesterday at the Forum on Integrity & Compliance titled A Symbiotic Approach to Integrity and Compliance in a Volatile Global Business Environment.

“In the process, we lost some old clients but overall we gained more as we had new clients that appreciated our work ethics,” she added.

Another panellist, Bar Council Malaysia president Ragunath Kesavan, agreed with a suggestion made at the forum that an independent oversight board should be formed to ensure that rules were followed in the corporate sector.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz was the keynote speaker at the forum with Siemens being the sponsor of the event.

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