New Zealand has made progress in reforming its legislative framework to combat bribery of foreign public officials over the past decade, but there has still never been a prosecution of a foreign bribery case and detection levels are low.
The latest report from the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions expresses concern that there is a lack of awareness in New Zealand concerning its companies’ exposure to significant foreign bribery risks. Uncertainties persist concerning interpretation of the foreign bribery offence and deficiencies with the new mechanism for attributing corporate liability have the potential to undermine its effectiveness in holding companies to account. The Working Group is also concerned that challenges in meeting the legislative threshold for requesting evidence overseas is preventing the Serious Fraud Office from fully investigating foreign bribery allegations.
The 46-country Working Group has just completed its Phase 4 evaluation of New Zealand’s implementation of the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions and related instruments. In addition to the aspects highlighted above, the report details further areas for improvement of New Zealand’s effectiveness in preventing, detecting, and enforcing the foreign bribery offence.
The Working Group has accordingly recommended that, among other things, New Zealand:
Develop and implement a strategy to improve public and private sector awareness of foreign bribery risk, as well as combat foreign bribery.
Address deficiencies with the new mechanism for attributing corporate liability and increase sanctions for legal persons that engage in foreign bribery.
Incentivise self-reporting of foreign bribery by New Zealand companies.
Move forward with previously proposed reforms to modernise its mutual legal assistance regime, specifically to address barriers to requesting overseas evidence.
The report also notes several positive developments in New Zealand that may contribute to combating foreign bribery. New Zealand demonstrated efforts to strengthen co-operation with international partners. The introduction of a new whistleblower protection regime was among New Zealand’s most important reforms in recent years and increases the potential to detect foreign bribery. New Zealand also took steps to improve company and foreign trust transparency requirements.
The Working Group adopted the report on New Zealand on 12 December 2024. The report is part of the Working Group’s fourth phase of monitoring, launched in 2016. Phase 4 looks at the evaluated country’s particular challenges and positive achievements. It also explores issues such as detection, enforcement, corporate liability, and international co-operation, as well as unresolved issues from prior reports. New Zealand will report to the Working Group in two years (i.e., December 2026) on its implementation of all recommendations and its enforcement efforts.
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