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18/01/10 - The OECD Working Group on Bribery sharply criticised the Slovak Republic’s failure to bring its anti-bribery law on corporate liability into line with its international obligations under the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.

It urged rapid introduction of new legislation to ensure that Slovak companies can be held liable for the offence of bribing foreign public officials.

Under current Slovak legislation, the prosecution and thus conviction of companies that engage in foreign bribery remains impossible because legal persons cannot be held liable for criminal offences.

Although the Slovak Republic ratified the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention in 1999, it has not made sufficient efforts to hold its companies legally liable for bribing foreign public officials.

The Working Group warned that the absence of corporate liability may trigger a need for increased due diligence over Slovak companies by their commercial partners and multilateral development banks.

For further information, journalists are invited to contact the OECD’s Media Relations Division on (33) 1 45 24 97 00 or news.contact@oecd.org.

For more information on OECD's work to fight corruption, visit www.oecd.org/daf/nocorruption