Anti-Bribery
The OECD Anti-Bribery Convention: The Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (Anti-Bribery Convention) was drawn up by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It was negotiated 1997 and entered into force on Feb. 15, 1999. The purpose of the Convention is to prevent natural or legal persons who are citizens of signatory countries from bribing foreign public officials, thus helping signatory countries avoid corruption and bribery while engaging in international trade. For example, the crime of bribing a foreign public official is committed when a company official of country (X), while engaging in trade, bribes a public official (such as a deputy or judge) of country (Y) with a view to realizing financial gain. Our country signed the Anti-Bribery Convention on December 17, 1997 and the ratification process was finalized on Jan. 1, 2000. Our domestic law has been amended in line with the terms laid out in the Convention. ‘The Law on the Amendment of Laws to Prevent Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Commercial Transactions’ was ratified by the Turkish Parliament on Jan. 2, 2003 and was published in the Official Gazette on Jan. 11, 2003 and issue number 24990. It officially entered into force the same day. With this development, the bribery of foreign public officials became a criminal offense under domestic law.
Application by our Bank of the Principles of the OECD Council Recommendation on Bribery and Export Credits: The OECD Council Recommendation on Bribery and Export Credits has been put into practice by our bank with a view to preventing bribery in state-sponsored export credit/insurance transactions. This was carried out by the Export Credit Group in line with the terms of the Anti-Bribery Convention. The Export Credit Group operates under the auspices of the OECD and is comprised of official export credit institutions of countries signatory to the Convention. The current version of the Recommendation can be viewed here: revised Recommendation of the Council on Bribery and Officially Supported Export Credits (OECD/LEGAL/0447) .
Within the framework of this Recommendation, our bank has established its own internal regulations aimed at combating bribery, collectively entitled ‘Turk Eximbank Practices Regarding the Prevention of Bribery in International Business Transactions’. In 2004, Turk Eximbank began receiving ‘letters of commitment’ from all companies that benefit from the bank’s credit, insurance and guarantee programs, in which these companies pledge that no acts of bribery were committed, or will be committed, at any stage of their transactions.
As a result of changes made in 2019, Turk Eximbank is receiving these ‘letters of commitment’ in regard to all of its programs with a view to preventing acts of bribery on the part of exporters and/or other parties with whom it has signed contracts for credit, insurance and/or guarantee transactions.
Commitments Received by our Bank: Exporters and other parties that have established a contractual relationship with our bank guarantee, in relation to international commercial transactions subject to their applications, that they, and those acting on their behalf, will not take part in any acts of bribery, either in our country or in the countries in which they do business; that they are not listed on the public sanctions list of any national or international authority; that they are not involved in any ongoing trial, investigation, conviction, arbitration award or administrative penalty having to do with bribery offenses; and that all fees and commissions paid to intermediary institutions, or institutions acting on their behalf, are entirely legal.
Sanctions:Applications made by any company that fails to state the commitments required by our bank, or is found to have issued false statements, or is found to have violated previous commitments, will be rejected and/or their payments will be halted, while payments already made will be withdrawn in line with the terms laid out in our Code of Practice.
All measures and sanctions are fully explained in the ‘Code of Practice on the Prevention of Bribery of Public Officials in International Business Transactions of the Export Credit Bank of Türkiye.
The Letter Of Commitment and Code of Practice on the Prevention of Bribery of Public Officials in International Business Transactions of the Export Credit Bank of Türkiye’: