ACRC Starts Establishing Mid- and Long-Term System for Ethics and Compliance Management

­ The ACRC hosts a conference with researchers to create a certification system including compliance program

(14^th Jun. 2021, ACRC)

Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commissions (Chairperson: Jeon Hyun-Heui; ACRC) has started creating a mid- and long-term system by introducing an Ethics and Compliance Program and Certification System.

Chairperson Jeon Hyun-Heui of the ACRC emphasized the importance of ethics and compliance management and requested for systematic and thorough research to the researchers by hosting “Conference for Introduction of Ethics and Compliance Management Program and Certification System” on 11^th June.

* Participated by: nine people, including Chairperson Jeon Hyun-Heui and Director General Lim Yoon-Ju of Planning and Coordination Office of the ACRC; and Dr. Lee Cheon-Hyun, Dr. Hwang Ji-Tae, and Dr. Park Hark-Mo of Korea Institute of Criminology

In the 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) announced by the Transparency International on January, Korea ranked 33^rd place up by 13 places from 2017. However, the indices related to companies and the private sector^* have been in a stalemate for the last four years, becoming a stumbling block of becoming one of top 20 countries in the CPI by 2022, which is one of national targets.

* 59 points in the corruption related to business activities (IHS Markit), 55 points in bribery practice, such as misuse of public fund and agreement (EIU)

The ACRC is going to encourage active practice of ethics and compliance management of public and private companies to overcome low performance in international evaluations of the private sector on transparency, and prevent recurrence of land speculation of public officials, such as the recent LH land speculation scandal.

Researchers including Dr. Lee Cheon-Hyun of Korean Institute of Criminology will be responsible for this study. They plan to develop ethics and compliance management program, and study certification for organizations practicing excellent ethics and compliance management as well as ways to incentivize them.

In the meantime, before creating the system the ACRC formed an expert task force to collect their opinion in March, and it also received opinions from citizens for ten days from 4^th to 13^th June through a survey on the People’s Idea Box which is a portal for communication with citizens.

Also, the ACRC plans to operate a pilot program for public companies in the second half of this year to collect opinions from stakeholder and create a realistic system. For those organizations selected for the pilot program, preliminary evaluation will be conducted based on consultation, factual survey, and (tentative) evaluation items for certification.

* Receipt of applications for the pilot program from the target agencies : 14^th Jun. ~ 18^th Jun.

Chairperson Jeon Hyun-Heui of the ACRC said, “even though ethics and compliance management is a very important value in our time, it has not taken its root in our society,” adding “as a leading anti-corruption agency, the ACRC needs to suggest concrete ways of practicing it and certify organizations for their best practices.” She continued, “with this, it is expected that Korea can also achieve its national goal of becoming one of top 20 countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).”