Long abstract

About Statistics Publications & Documents Information by topic

The Phase 2 Report on Turkey by the Working Group on Bribery evaluates Turkey’s implementation of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (Convention). The Report concludes that there are some serious weaknesses in Turkey’s implementation of the Convention, and therefore recommends that Turkey undergo a Phase 2bis examination within one year of adoption of the Phase 2 Report.

The Report describes three main areas in which Turkey’s implementation of the Convention falls short. The first concerns the liability of legal persons for the offence of bribing a foreign public official. The Turkish government took the unexpected step of repealing the liability of legal persons in 2005, and replaced it with “special security measures”, which comprise the revocation of licenses and confiscation. They are limited in scope and do not meet the standards under the Convention.

The second area concerns the dismissal by Turkey of an investigation of a foreign bribery case allegedly involving a Turkish holding company and Turkish nationals in another country that resulted in charges in the other country against the president of the company and several other company officials. The Working Group is not satisfied with the reasons given by the Turkish authorities for the dismissal. In addition, Turkey took two years to request information collected by the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme regarding allegations in its widely publicised October 2005 Final Report against 139 Turkish companies of illicit payments to the Iraqi government. The Working Group believes that the failure to act promptly in these cases might reflect the perspective of some of the participants at the on-site visit that there is a general attitude that bribery in neighbouring countries where bribe solicitation seems to be common has to be accepted.

The third main area is the inadequacy of public awareness-raising activities on the foreign bribery offence undertaken by the Turkish government, and the resulting low level of awareness and engagement by the Turkish private sector. The lack of engagement on foreign bribery by the private sector and civil society was also demonstrated by their significantly low level of representation during the on-site visit.

Nevertheless, Turkey took an important step by amending its foreign bribery offence in 2005, and through progress on certain supplementary issues. For instance, Türk Eximbank, Turkey’s official export credit support agency, MASAK, Turkey’s financial intelligence unit, and the Ministry of Finance, have made efforts to publicise the Convention, and Türk Eximbank has undertaken training and informational activities for staff and applicants for export credit support. MASAK has also prepared draft regulations to improve the anti-money laundering system for suspicious transactions reporting. Furthermore, the Working Group welcomes the submission to Parliament of a draft Witness Protection Act that covers foreign bribery, and an initiative to bring Turkish accounting standards in line with International Accounting Standards.

The Phase 2 Report and the Recommendations therein, which reflect findings of experts from Bulgaria and Germany, were adopted by the OECD Working Group in December 2007. The Report is based on responses to questionnaires, laws, regulations and other materials supplied by Turkey, as well as a five-day on-site visit to Ankara and Istanbul in May 2007 by the evaluation team, during which the team mainly met with representatives from the Turkish government. The Phase 2 procedures provide for a Phase 2bis examination in the event of inadequate implementation of the Convention.