Azernews.Az

One of the main challenges organizations face before applying ISO 37001 Anti-Bribery Management Systems Standard is the question of whether this standard is applicable to their organization and the impact that adoption of the standard would follow. In many cases, the customer executives express their concerns not related to accompanying costs, or the number of formalities that the implementation would bring, but rather demonstrate uncertainty about the consequent impression within the business community. Notably, the executives worry that the implementation of the ISO 37001 standard will lead to the perception that their organization is already exposed to bribery. Such misconception prevents organizations from adopting the ISO 37001 standard that would reduce their bribery risks. For this reason, it is important to understand the scope of ISO 37001, and consequently the category of organizations that may implement it.

Perception

The idea that adoption of ISO 37001 will end up with the organization being perceived as corrupted can hardly be true since the standard not just focuses on bribery by the organization, or by its personnel or business associates acting on the organization’s behalf or for its benefit, but also addresses bribery of the organization, or of its personnel or business associates in relation to the organization’s activities. Despite ISO 37001 concentrates on preventing bribery attempts by the organization, it cannot lead to the idea that the organization had been committing bribery crime, yet the standard comprises measures preventing bribery by the organization. Despite well-developed internal controls, the organization may face external bribery attempts depending on its business activities. Implementation of ISO 37001 will also protect the organization from external bribery threats.

Organizations that can implement ISO 37001

ISO 37001 Anti-Bribery Management Systems Standard is flexible and can be adapted to a wide range of organizations in any country, including:

• Large organizations
• Small & medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
• Public and private sector organizations, including but not limited to academic institutions
• Non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Accordingly, the standard can be implemented within the organizations notwithstanding their size, type, sector, or industry.

Implementation

The measures required by ISO 37001 are designed to be integrated with existing management processes and controls. It means that the organizations that already have established ISO management system standards, such as ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems Standard, can easily harmonize ISO 37001 standard with their existing management systems standard.

About the author: Ruslan Bayramov is a business lawyer with more than 12 years of expertise both in the corporate and consulting industry. He mainly specializes in corporate law, the law of contracts, labor law, ABC/AML compliance, and Corporate Governance. He is the founding partner at Legalize Law Firm. For more information about the author please follow the link:

https://legalize.az/en/team/ruslan

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz