International cooperation

2024 saw a regular G20 summit where the leaders endorsed the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group Action Plan 2025-2027 and the G20 High-Level Principles on Incentives for the Private Sector to Adopt Comprehensive and Consistent Integrity Measures to Prevent and Combat Corruption.

Additionally, the International Treaty on Exchange of Data for the Verification of Asset Declarations was ratified this year by its first party.

General anti-corruption issues

This year, a number of analytical and guidance materials on general anti-corruption issues was released. These include, in particular:

• OECD Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook in the OECD member States;
• U4 Evaluating Anti-Corruption Interventions: The State of Practice;
• Fraud and Corruption Control Framework for the public sector by the Attorney General’s Department of Australia.

China issued the findings of a report proving the link between anti-corruption measures and weight loss of public officials.

Anti-corruption strategies

This year, countries paid particular attention to the significance of anti-corruption strategies. Such documents were drafted or updated in many jurisdictions, including Chile, Vietnam, Moldova, Malaysia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Angola.

Persons responsible for countering corruption

Some countries established new bodies fulfilling anti-corruption functions, in particular:

• Djibouti created a National Independent Commission for Preventing and Combating Corruption;
• the United States established a Department of Government Efficiency.

A number of countries decided to expand the powers of anti-corruption bodies, including Senegal, Saudi Arabia, Georgia and Malaysia.

At the same time the functions of anti-corruption authorities in some jurisdictions were limited. Slovakia, for instance, abolished the Special Prosecutor’s Office responsible for investigating corruption and corruption-related crimes and serious organised crime. Experts believe that this decision results in reduced effectiveness of investigation of relevant crimes, because the employees of other divisions of prosecutorial authorities had not dealt with the cases of this kind.

Anti-corruption standards

This year some countries adopted the measures for improving the systems of restrictions, prohibitions and obligations aimed at countering corruption.

For example, a new law in Djibouti introduced specific anti-corruption standards for officials.

Senegal expanded the list of individuals obliged to disclose their assets, and Georgia formed a public commission to select candidates to verify asset declarations for the first time in four years.

Bosnia and Herzegovina updated a law establishing the restrictions, prohibitions and obligations with regard to conflict-of-interest management. Uzbekistan adopted a law on conflicts of interest that took almost a year to be signed by the President of the country.

Croatian legislators paid attention to the need to prevent corruption in lobbying, which resulted in the adoption of a relevant law. Germany criminalised improper interest representation.

Liability measures

Some countries, for example, Tanzania and Italy amended liability measures for corruption offences in 2024.

Other countries saw curious proceedings with regard to corruption cases (the United States, China and the United Kingdom).

Additionally, the US Supreme Court created an unusual legal precedent, recognising that officials can agree to have a “reward” if it is provided after the public decision is taken and does not infringe the local legislation. Experts stress that that was another step of US law enforcement towards a higher threshold of evidence proving corruption.

Confiscation of assets

Confiscation and recovery of illicit assets was an important topic in the focus of scholars’ attention.

In particular, Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative issued materials on payback to victims of corruption and on management of confiscated assets.

A review article on how countries dispose of property confiscated from the corrupt in the public interest was published on this portal.

Transnational corruption

The fight against transnational corruption continued to attract special attention of legislators.

The United States adopted the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act criminalising passive bribery by foreign officials and thereby supplementing liability of natural and legal persons for active bribery of foreign officials provided for by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

Australia changed the procedure of countering bribery of foreign officials, in particular, by introducing new corpus delicti — failure to prevent bribery of foreign public officials.

Anti-corruption in the business sector

Both scholars and legislators did not disregard the topic of the fight against corruption in the business sector in 2024.

In particular, the following analytical and guidance materials were issued:

• a report on remediation agreements for corporate corruption was published under the Chandler Session on Integrity and Corruption;
• OECD guidance on promoting principles of integrity in the private sector;
• guidance on preventing fraud in organisations by the UK Home Office;
• guidance on corporate anti-corruption programmes by the Attorney-General’s Department of Australia;
• a guide on how to counter corruption in sponsorship and charitable activities by the French Anti-Corruption Agency.

Some countries have amended their legislation on countering corruption in the private sector. In Greece and South Africa for instance, liability for commission of a number of corruption offences was extended to the legal persons of the private sector, and in China – on officials of organisations. Colombia revisited the rules for managing conflicts of interest in the private sector.

Corruption whistleblowers

As in the previous years, disclosure of corruption offences and protection of whistleblowers remain an acute topic.

In particular, this year the countries of the European Union have almost completed the implementation of Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law.

The norms concerning whistleblowing and protection of whistleblowers were introduced also in other countries, including Costa Rica, Vatican and Saudi Arabia.

A number of incentives for disclosure of offences were adopted in the United States: specifically, a programme to exempt whistleblowers from liability and a programme of rewards for whistleblowers in case of disclosure of important corporate and financial violations.

The first online platform for reporting offences for whistleblowers in Spanish speaking countries was launched at Chile’s initiative.

Public procurement

A number of countries (the Philippines, South Africa) adopted legal acts regulating public procurement also with regard to corruption prevention.

Anti-corruption education and awareness-raising

The topic of anti-corruption education and awareness-raising does not lose its relevance as well.

In Hong Kong for example, an International Academy against Corruption launched its activities aimed at systemic and regular training of the servants of anti-corruption and law enforcement bodies and exchange of experience between scholars and practitioners in the fight against corruption from Hong Kong and other countries.

The U4 research centre issued guidance on anti-corruption training.

Corruption measurement

A number of analytical materials published in 2024 were dedicated to corruption measurement.

In particular, an analytical report on existing methods of measuring corruption was published under the Chandler Sessions on Integrity and Corruption.

Additionally, a number of regular anti-corruption rankings were issued, including:

• open budget survey;
• state capture index;
• index of corruption risks for business;
• rule of law index.

Anti-Corruption Centre of the Higher School of Economics

Last year, the Centre developed an “electronic assistant” to detect the indicators of conflicts of interest.

To make it operational, the following elements were created:

• a database containing: relevant jurisprudence indicating the value of all indicators; the elements (indicators) and their value characterizing the situation from the point of view of presence or absence of a conflict of interest; recommendations concerning the measures for preventing and managing conflicts of interest, adopting liability measures in the situations characterised by different combinations of values of indicators;
• algorithm of operation of the “electronic assistant” (backend), including the list and sequence of questions made to the user and indices indicating the correspondence of answers chosen to the materials from the database (values of indicators and their combinations, examples of relevant jurisprudence, relevant recommendations);
• user interface (front-end) based on the algorithm described.

The final software product is targeted primarily at the individuals responsible for preventing and countering corruption (including conflict-of-interest management) in public bodies (organisations) and functions the following way for the user:

1. The user introduces the information on a disputable situation by responding to questions step by step and having the possibility to observe the description of the situation formed dynamically in a separate window;
2. After having provided answers to all questions the user gets:

• recommendations on whether there are indicators of conflicts of interest/personal interest of the official or his/her associates in the situation described, what measures are recommended for adoption in the situation to prevent or manage a conflict of interest and the need for disciplinary liability measures;
• Information on relevant jurisprudence which the user can explore autonomously to take a more informed decision on actions in a disputable situation.