A roundtable discussion on the "Importance and Benefits of Introducing Anti-Corruption Compliance Programs in the Private Sector" was held on 11 September.<\/p>\n
Mariam Zadoyan, Project Manager of the ALA\u2019s Component of \u201cArmenia: Promoting\u00a0Anti-Corruption Conduct and Reforms\u201d project delivered a speech at the event.<\/p>\n
She presented the program, and also referred to the introduction of the Institute of\u00a0Criminal Liability of Legal Entities in Armenia.\u00a0She noted that the institute has been\u00a0incorporated in a number of countries, such as the US, England, Austria, Canada,\u00a0China, Denmark, Iceland and a number of other countries;<\/p>\n
\u201cIn different countries, there are different views on bringing legal entities to\u00a0criminal liability.\u00a0For example, the basis of corporate liability varies in different\u00a0countries, some provide criminal liability and in some administrative. For example\u00a0our country applies criminal liability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mariam Zadoyan emphasized that the punishments should be more preventive than\u00a0those that would lead the company to economic destruction.\u00a0According to her, the\u00a0introduction of this institute is aimed just at the prevention.<\/p>\n
She also touched upon the issues of mitigating or excluding the legal responsibility\u00a0of the legal person.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe draft states that under certain circumstances it will be possible for the legal\u00a0entity to evade liability, and this is highly appreciated.\u00a0In international practice, the\u00a0issue of mitigating or toughening it is different. In some countries, the company can\u00a0generally avoid liability if it has an anti-corruption compliance programme in place.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the representative of the Ministry of Justice Arman Babakhanyan, the\u00a0draft Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia will also envisage exclusion of\u00a0liability when introducing the institute of criminal liability of legal entities in the\u00a0Republic of Armenia.<\/p>\n
There will be 5 sanctions, including a ban for participation in\u00a0public procurement.\u00a0"There is a corporate governance problem, and when companies realize that\u00a0imitation of risk management alone will cause problems, they will begin to refrain\u00a0from illegalities," Narine Melikyan, Director of the Corporate Governance Center of\u00a0Armenia said.<\/p>\n
In her report, she presented evidence that the costs of not implementing anti-\u00a0corruption compliance programs and running a business in a corrupt manner are far\u00a0more than the costs of investing and working honestly.<\/p>\n
Lusine Nalbandyan, a legal expert at the Armenian Lawyers\u2019 Association,\u00a0mentioned in her speech that the anti-corruption compliance program is a part of\u00a0anti-corruption education, and that the only problem is that it is necessary to invest\u00a0in Armenia in accordance to correct legislative and possibly fewer risks, also taking\u00a0into account international experience.\u00a0Further she presented a review of the\u00a0international practice of mandatory implementation of these programs in the field of\u00a0public procurement, emphasizing that certification is carried out by an independent\u00a0body.<\/p>\n
David Ter-Gulanyan, from the Ministry of Economy, noted that the government\u00a0attaches great importance to the corporate governance issue and is in the process\u00a0of revising its Code of Conduct. He also informed that in the context of the strategy\u00a0of improving the business environment currently being developed by the Ministry of\u00a0Economy, special attention is paid to the introduction of corporate governance and\u00a0ways of raising awareness and encouraging it.<\/p>\n
In his speech, representative of the Finance Ministry spokesman Sergey\u00a0Shahnazaryan said,<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that the government recently adopted a decision that essentially\u00a0introduced new content institutions to manage corruption risks in the field of public\u00a0procurement, in particular the involvement of the banking system.\u00a0Anti-corruption\u00a0compliance programs in the context of this system may be addressed after the full\u00a0implementation of the system, as it would be more difficult at present to determine\u00a0its feasibility.\u00a0That is, it is possible to implement anti-corruption compliance\u00a0programs through the banking system and to include in this dialogue the Central\u00a0Bank of Armenia and banks.\u00a0It is also important to understand whether the\u00a0independent certification body will be responsible for identifying possible\u00a0cases.\u00a0We also have to take into account, what privilege to the business we are\u00a0talking about, the price or documentary.<\/p>\n
The discussion was followed by question and answer session. As a result, an\u00a0agreement was reached with the state authorities to redraft the proposals in the\u00a0light of new legislative changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A roundtable discussion on the "Importance and Benefits of Introducing Anti-Corruption Compliance Programs in the Private Sector" was held on 11 September. Mariam Zadoyan, Project Manager of the ALA\u2019s Component of \u201cArmenia: Promoting\u00a0Anti-Corruption Conduct and Reforms\u201d project delivered a speech at the event. She presented the program, and also referred to the introduction of the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccd.armla.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccd.armla.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccd.armla.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccd.armla.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccd.armla.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ccd.armla.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6288,"href":"https:\/\/ccd.armla.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286\/revisions\/6288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccd.armla.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccd.armla.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccd.armla.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccd.armla.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}