When government officials use their power for illegitimate private gain, it is considered political corruption if the act is correlated directly to their official duties.

Major forms of corruption include embezzlement, bribery, extortion, nepotism, patronage, and graft. Corruption is not restricted drug or human trafficking, money laundering, or other criminal enterprises.

Certain political funding practices and other activities that are legal in one place may be illegal in another. Therefore, the definition of illegal corruption varies among jurisdictions and countries, and is often vague due to the poorly defined powers of some government officials. Bribery alone is estimated to cost over 1 trillion U.S. dollars each year worldwide.

Global PEP List (module)

The Anti-Bribery Provision of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act generally prohibits any individual or company from corruptly paying or offering to pay, directly or indirectly, money or anything of value to a Foreign Official to obtain or retain business. To allow our clients to easily identify Foreign Officials within their third party networks, we have added State Owned Companies and Foreign Officials to our database.

UK Bribery List (module)

The Acts defines four new criminal offences:

• Offering or paying a bribe
• Requesting or receiving a bribe
• Bribing a foreign public official. (A specific offence required to comply with the OECD Convention)
• A corporate offence of failing to prevent bribery being undertaken on its behalf

The legislation applies to all companies, partnerships and individuals based in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; as well as foreign companies and individuals doing business in the UK. It has a global reach, applying to acts or omissions taking place anywhere in the world. To allow our clients to easily identify Foreign Officials (FOs) amongst their third party networks, foreign officials and state-owned companies are included in the WorldCompliance database.