The defence industry has formed an international forum for business ethical conduct. Our director Mark Pyman reviews its potential in an opinion piece for Jane's Defence Weekly.

Collaboration across the defence industry is a key factor in tackling corruption. Through our close work with the defence sector since 2003, our programme has witnessed increased efforts and determination to combat corruption. We have encouraged industry to come together, reach a collective view and raise standards themselves. In 2003 the European defence industry embarked on a first attempt to harmonise industry-wide standards by creating the Common Industry Standards (CIS), which were adopted by virtually all the European aerospace and defence associations.

The CIS represents a general trend in the defence sector, where companies are working to raise business standards. The regional collaboration for the CIS was followed by the more global initiative of the International Forum on Business Ethics (IFBEC) in 2010. Although both are in their infancy and neither have had a substantial effect on corruption, we are hopeful these initiatives will have the energy and vision to make a success of this collaboration. Clearly the UK Bribery Act and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act 1977 (FCPA) are a part of the story, but proactive industry action will win out in building trust and performance over enforcement.

In the defence sector we have identified another anti-corruption trend: the readiness of government defence ministries to listen to this topic and to consider action in addressing it. Our defence programme has been at the forefront of this effort and we see readiness to change practices and systems specifically to address corruption risks in countries as diverse as Norway, Chile, Malaysia, South Korea and Ukraine. The key to reducing corruption in defence is to make it a common endeavour between buyers and sellers: a forum in which the main arms importing nations are invited to engage in dialogue with exporting defence companies. This is an idea that would never have got off the ground if there was not an international defence forum with the legitimacy to champion it. Now the defence industry has IFBEC. Suppose this initiative invited eight importing governments – with a balance between developed and developing nations – to join IFBEC: the defence industry would potentially have a hugely influential group for raising anticorruption standards worldwide.

There are other suggestions that come to mind when thinking about IFBEC’s future. Firstly, IFBEC members need to give substance to what it is that they all agree on.Asimple way to do this is through a set of principles similar to the ones that IFBEC has adopted. However, a much more solid basis would be to record defence companies’ performance against a template of current good practice. Transparency International’s Defence and Security Programme is developing a questionnaire that reviews the depth of anti-corruption programmes across defence companies, outlining current capabilities across the industry, identifying specific areas for improvement and showing the world that there is nothing to hide. This could be a valuable benchmarking tool for companies when informing themselves against an external good practice template. The defence industry has much to gain by being open about comparisons between the compliance programmes of its companies.

Download the full Jane's opinion piece 'Gaining ground on the anti-corruption front'.

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