Dow Jones has published their State of Anti-Corruption Compliance Survey 2011, with responses from over 300 company executives from more than 40 countries.

• Fearing noncompliance, more than 55% of companies delay or avoid working with global business partners.
• Less than a third of companies monitor business-partner integrity.
• More than 40% of companies have lost business to competitors that won contracts unethically.
• Nearly two thirds of executives believe businesses should always report suspected bribery by a competitor to the appropriate authorities.
• Almost three quarters of respondents have anti-corruption programs in place, with consistent rates of implementation across all regions and industries.
• Nearly half the companies’ lack confidence in their due diligence processes.

What does all this mean?

1. The risk of doing business with unethical companies is real, but companies don’t have a lot of confidence that they have the processes in place to identify them before entering into business relationships.
2. Internal audit and risk functions should have this on their radar.