Le pétrole, le gaz et les minerais sont des ressources indispensables pour le bon fonctionnement de nos économies et sont très convoitées. Elles sont, en outre, particulièrement propices à l’émergence de flux financiers illicites tels que la corruption, l’évitement fiscal ou encore le blanchiment de capitaux. La prise de conscience relative à l’ampleur des pratiques illicites dans le secteur extractif est relativement récente. Depuis une vingtaine d’années, diverses mesures formant un régime juridique ambitieux ont été adoptées pour endiguer ce phénomène. Malgré l’existence de ce régime juridique, les pratiques illicites perdurent au sein de ce secteur. Les acteurs du secteur extractif, entreprises et agents publics, ont su s’adapter et faire preuve de créativité pour contourner, détourner et manipuler ce régime juridique, afin de préserver leurs avantages et de perpétuer les flux financiers illicites. Ils peuvent également recourir à l’ingénierie juridique et financière qui leur fournit un arsenal d’outils juridiques et mobilise des experts maîtrisant à la perfection l’environnement juridique, politique et financier dans lequel les acteurs du secteur extractif évoluent. Ainsi le droit peut-il être propice aux flux financiers illicites et même au service de ceux-ci tout en voulant les combattre. / Oil, gas and minerals are indispensable resources for our economies and are sought-after. They are particularly prone to illicit financial flows such as corruption, tax avoidance and money laundering. Awareness of the extent of illicit practices in the extractive sector is relatively new. Over the last two decades, various measures have been adopted, forming an ambitious legal framework to combat illicit financial flows in the extractive sector. Despite the existence of this legal framework, illicit practices are still persistent. Stakeholders within the extractive sector such as companies and public officials have been able to adapt and be creative in order to abuse, circumvent and manipulate this legal framework in order to preserve their advantages and perpetuate illicit financial flows. They can also use legal and financial engineering, which provides them with an arsenal of legal tools and mobilizes experts who master the legal, political and financial environment in which companies and public officials evolve. Hence while wanting to combat illicit financial flows, law can find itself propitious to these illicit practices and even to their service.

Orientador: Fernando Andrade Fernandes / Resumo: Considerando que o delito de corrupção é favorecido pelo mundo globalizado, em que as atividades econômicas encontram-se interligadas numa rede de interdependência dos mercados, gerando uma maior complexidade da sociedade e consequente relativização de valores, das regras morais e jurídicas, o presente trabalho tem como objetivo realizar uma análise do problema pela ótica do Sistema Integral de Direito Penal, considerando-se o entendimento de que apenas nessa perspectiva mais abrangente será possível uma melhor compreensão do fenômeno frente à mencionada complexidade. Registre-se, inicialmente, a hipótese de que se trata de uma manifestação do fenômeno delitivo, que possui raízes em uma perspectiva criminológica a qual passou a enfatizar a relevância penal também de alguns fatos realizados por determinados sujeitos de elevado status social (powerfull), com destaque para certas práticas no mundo dos negócios. Considerando-se a elevada danosidade social destas práticas e a complexidade operativa da sua execução, com alcance muitas vezes multinacional, será avaliada a opção, já efetivada, de criação de uma política criminal internacional sobre o problema, por meio de documentos de alcance transnacional, que expressem valores comuns neste contexto mais amplo, sob pena de atos de deslealdade concorrencial serem severamente punidos em um determinado país e, simplesmente, não configurarem crime em outros, desequilibrando as relações econômicas estabelecidas na esfera transnacional, ... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Considering that the crime of corruption is fomented by the globalized world, in which economic activities are interconnected in a network of interdependence of the markets, generating a greater complexity of society and consequent relativization of values, of moral and juridical rules, the present article has as an objective to carry out an analysis of the problem from the perspective of the Comprehensive Criminal Law System, considering the understanding that only in this more comprehensive perspective will a better understanding of the phenomenon be possible in the face of this complexity. The hypothesis is initially that this is a manifestation of the delirium phenomenon that has roots in a criminological perspective that began to emphasize the criminal relevance also of some facts carried out by certain subjects of high social status (powerfull) for certain practices in the business world. Considering the high social damage of these practices and the operational complexity of their execution, which is often multinational in scope, the option of creating an international criminal policy on the problem will be evaluated through documents of transnational scope, common values ​​in this broader context, under penalty of acts of competitive disloyalty being severely punished in one country, and simply not setting up crime in others, unbalancing the economic relations established in the transnational sphere, by the disproportion of the legal burdens that permeate such relation... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

In distributed systems, if a hardware fault corrupts the state of a process, this error might propagate as a corrupt message and contaminate other processes in the system, causing severe outages. Recently, state corruptions of this nature have been observed surprisingly often in large computer populations, e.g., in large-scale data centers. Moreover, since the resilience of processors is expected to decline in the near future, the likelihood of state corruptions will increase even further. In this work, we argue that preventing the propagation of state corruption should be a first-class requirement for large-scale fault-tolerant distributed systems. In particular, we propose developers to target error isolation, the property in which each correct process ignores any corrupt message it receives. Typically, a process cannot decide whether a received message is corrupt or not. Therefore, we introduce hardening as a class of principled approaches to implement error isolation in distributed systems. Hardening techniques are (semi-)automatic transformations that enforce that each process appends an evidence of good behavior in the form of error codes to all messages it sends. The techniques “virtualize” state corruptions into more benign failures such as crashes and message omissions: if a faulty process fails to detect its state corruption and abort, then hardening guarantees that any corrupt message the process sends has invalid error codes. Correct processes can then inspect received messages and drop them in case they are corrupt. With this dissertation, we contribute theoretically and practically to the state of the art in fault-tolerant distributed systems. To show that hardening is possible, we design, formalize, and prove correct different hardening techniques that enable existing crash-tolerant designs to handle state corruption with minimal developer intervention. To show that hardening is practical, we implement and evaluate these techniques, analyzing their effect on the system performance and their ability to detect state corruptions in practice.

This technical report complements the paper entitled “Scalable error isolation for distributed systems” published at USENIX NSDI 15.

The thesis "Opportunities for corruption in the Public Procurement Act" deals with the identification of possible opportunities for corruption in public procurement under the current Act No. 134/2016 Coll., The Public Procurement Act and laws that dealt with public procurement after 1993. together with their amendments. The work is conceived as a case study according to Yin (Yin 1994) using the theory of networks of political actors, which is one of the most suitable for investigating cases of corruption (Potůček 2017). Furthermore, the concept of corruption is defined, including its development, and its types are known according to the academic literature. The aim of the thesis will be to find opportunities for corruption in the laws and also how these opportunities have changed over time, so the subject of the thesis is the period of public procurement from 1993 to the present (2020). The empirical part will analyze the laws and amendments for a given period of time in order to find corruption opportunities in public procurement laws. It will also be assessed whether the necessary changes have been achieved in relation to the reduction of corruption opportunities thanks to the amendment of public procurement laws. At the same time, a questionnaire survey is conducted among public procurement...

In 2019, the two Swedish banks Swedbank and SEB was involved in what has been called one of the largest money laundry scandals. Money laundering is a critical sustainability issue for banks since their operations enable money from corrupt activities to be laundered into the financial system, hence diverts resources from education and health services. Corruption is a difficult topic to manage due to its invisible nature, making it hard to detect and measure compared to emissions or compliance with human rights. In the last decades, there has been an increasing demand for organizations to communicate their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) considerations. However, the flexibility allowed by standards and regulation in this area regarding what to disclose have been argued to undermine the reliability of CSR information. There have been discussions whether the banks had informed stakeholders about the anticorruption risks sufficiently, information that primarily should be communicated through sustainability and annual reports. Previous studies examining CSR reporting quality have found that companies present information in different ways, complicating a comparison of information. They have also found that such disclosure has been used as a strategy to highlight only the good work of a company and omit negative disclosures. This study examines the quality of CSR information that is communicated in annual and sustainability reports of the four largest banks operating in Sweden; Nordea, Handelsbanken, Swedbank, and SEB. Our focus is limited to disclosure about anti-corruption for which the Global reporting initiative (GRI) provides principles in terms of what they asses to be good content and quality. We will use these principles when structuring our categories in our qualitative content analysis with quantitative elements and when we analyse and make conclusions of our results regarding the quality. We use a content analysis model called the Consolidated Narrative Interrogation Model (CONI) which integrate both qualitative and quantitative measures of CSR reporting quality. Our result show that anti-corruption disclosure differs in terms of presentation structure, which requirements from GRI that are applied and how much information that is disclosed. The overall conclusion regarding its quality is that it does not meet the reporting quality principles stated in GRI 101: foundation. We find indications of strategic legitimacy in terms of how banks disclose anti-corruption activities which is critical for the overall reporting practise since its purpose it to constitute an accurate and reliable source of information to stakeholders.

Depuis le milieu des années 1990, plus d’une dizaine d’instruments internationaux destinés à lutter contre la corruption transnationale ont été adoptés. À l’échelle mondiale, la multiplication des échanges commerciaux a rendu nécessaire la mise en place d’une coopération interétatique susceptible de répondre à l’essor de la criminalité transfrontalière. En outre, l’harmonisation des législations, par le biais d’engagements internationaux contraignants, se présentait comme le seul moyen de réduire les distorsions de concurrence. Un retournement s’est ainsi opéré : l’autorisation implicite, voire la promotion des « frais commerciaux exceptionnels », a cédé la place à la criminalisation de la corruption transnationale.À l’échelle de l’Union européenne, la réalisation du marché unique et l’ouverture des frontières justifient l’adoption de plusieurs instruments spécifiques. Toutefois, les États membres refusent d’abandonner le droit de punir — ou de ne pas punir — prérogative régalienne qui constitue l’un des attributs de la souveraineté. L’harmonisation des législations européennes a par conséquent été influencée par la problématique plus large d’un droit pénal de l’Union européenne en construction. Les dispositions destinées à lutter contre la corruption sont enfermées dans des instruments de nature intergouvernementale et sont strictement limitées afin de faire échec à l’éventualité d’une « communautarisation rampante ».Quinze ans plus tard, la mise en œuvre de la législation anticorruption demeure inégale et l’ineffectivité de la répression en Europe contraste avec les lourdes condamnations des entreprises européennes par des juridictions étrangères. La stratégie initiale, qui ne comprend aucun mécanisme de suivi afin d’assurer une pression permanente sur les États membres, montre ainsi ses limites et s’avère incapable de répondre aux enjeux actuels.La présente étude cherche à appréhender les nouvelles dynamiques anticorruption au sein de l’espace de liberté, de sécurité et de justice au lendemain de la « dépilarisation » opérée par le traité de Lisbonne. Elle met en exergue l’émergence d’une lutte contre la corruption à deux vitesses. Ainsi, l’intégration de la lutte contre la corruption au niveau supranational devrait, à moyen terme, se limiter à la protection des intérêts financiers de l’UE : elle se traduit, d’une part, par l’adoption d’une directive d’harmonisation du droit pénal substantiel et, d’autre part, par la mise en place d’un procureur européen garantissant une répression effective. Au-delà de cet objectif isolé, le « paquet anticorruption » de la Commission européenne n’amorce pas la rationalisation nécessaire du cadre juridique actuel. La pierre angulaire de la nouvelle stratégie est limitée à l’adoption d’un mécanisme d’évaluation périodique afin de susciter, par le biais du droit souple, un surcroît de volonté politique de la part des États membres.Aussi, dans une démarche prospective, la présente thèse tend à démontrer que l’Union européenne constitue le niveau adéquat pour mener la lutte contre la corruption. Toutefois, son rôle moteur ne peut se réaliser, dans sa dimension tant répressive que préventive, qu’à travers l’incrimination de l’eurocrime de corruption. / Since the mid 1990s, more than ten international instruments aimed at fighting foreign bribery have been adopted. Globally, the increased trade has necessitated the establishment of an interstate cooperation likely to respond to the growth of cross-border crime. Furthermore, the harmonization of legislation, through binding international commitments, was the only way to reduce distortions of competition. A turnaround has thus been made: the implicit authorization, or sometimes even the promotion, of ‘exceptional commercial costs’, has been replaced by the criminalization of bribery.At the European Union level, the single market and open borders justify the adoption of several specific instruments. However, Member States refuse to give up the right to sanction – or not to sanction – which is one of the attributes of sovereignty. The harmonization of anticorruption legislation was therefore influenced by the broader issue of a European criminal law. The provisions intended to fight corruption are enclosed in intergovernmental instruments and strictly limited in order to thwart the possibility of an unwanted ‘communautarisation’.Fifteen years later, the implementation of anti-corruption legislation remains uneven and the ineffectiveness of repression in Europe contrasts with the heavy sentences of European companies by foreign courts. The initial strategy, which includes no monitoring mechanism to ensure constant pressure on Member States, shows its limits and is unable to meet the current challenges.This study seeks to understand the new anticorruption dynamics within the area of ​​freedom, security and justice after the ‘depilarisation’ made by the Lisbon Treaty. It highlights the emergence of a two-tier approach in the fight against corruption. The integration of the fight against corruption at the supranational level should, in the medium term, be limited to the protection of the financial interests of the EU: it translates, firstly, by the adoption of a new directive aimed at harmonizing substantive criminal law and, secondly, by the establishment of a European public prosecutor ensuring effective prosecution. Beyond this single goal, the ‘anti-corruption package’ of the European Commission does not initiate the necessary rationalization of the existing legal framework. The cornerstone of the new strategy is limited to the adoption of a periodic evaluation mechanism in order to generate, through soft law, additional political will on the part of Member States.In a forward-looking approach, this thesis suggests that the European Union is the appropriate level to lead the fight against corruption. However, its central role can only be achieved through the criminalization of corruption as a eurocrime.

The thesis investigates corruption and the anti-corruption strategies. Focusing on the case study of Ukraine, it is shown how corruption can affect society and what particular measures can be undertaken for tackling this phenomenon. It is illustrated that the current level of corruption in Ukraine is high in all fields of public management: the customs and taxation systems, law enforcement agencies, the judicial system, business, and so on. The analysis of the Ukrainian government's anti-corruption strategies reveals that they are based primarily on deregulation, demonopolization, the creation of a strong institutional environment, and digitalization. In recent years, Ukraine has been able to achieve institutional advancements through the creation of new anti-corruption bodies and has initiated digitalization as a new strategic direction against corruption. However, none of these activities have brought tangible results so far. The thesis analyzes why the government's anti-corruption strategies have been fruitless to date and how the situation might develop in the future. Keywords anti-corruption strategies, bribery, corruption, European Union, institutional reforms, public officials, Ukraine. Abstrakt Práce zkoumá korupci a protikorupční strategie se zaměřením na případovou studii Ukrajiny. Je...

ВКР (магистерская диссертация) состоит из введения, трех глав, заключения, библиографического списка, включающего 67 наименования, 6 приложений. Работа включает 12 таблиц и 3 рисунка. Общий объем ВКР (магистерской диссертации) – 115 страниц. Объект исследования – противодействие коррупции в таможенных органах. Цель исследования – проанализировать противодействие коррупции как фактор повышения эффективности деятельности регионального таможенного управления и предложить критерии оценки эффективности антикоррупционной деятельности в таможенных органах. Научная новизна. Заключается в постановке научной проблемы исследования противодействия коррупции как фактора повышения эффективности деятельности в таможенной сфере на региональном уровне управления; в уточнении понятий «антикоррупционная деятельность в таможенной сфере» и «фактор повышения эффективности антикоррупционной деятельности в таможенной сфере». Практическая значимость исследования состоит в возможности использования материалов проекта по совершенствованию практики противодействия коррупции в Уральском таможенном управлении и других таможенных управлениях России. / The WRC (master's thesis) consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion, a bibliographic list including 67 titles, 6 appendices. The work includes 12 tables and 3 figures. The total volume of the WRC (master's thesis) is 115 pages. The object of the study is the fight against corruption in the customs authorities. The purpose of the study is to analyze anti-corruption as a factor in improving the efficiency of the regional customs administration and to propose criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of anti-corruption activities in customs authorities. Scientific novelty. It consists in the formulation of the scientific problem of anti-corruption research as a factor of increasing the effectiveness of activities in the customs sphere at the regional management level; in clarifying the concepts of "anti-corruption activities in the customs sphere" and "a factor of increasing the effectiveness of anti-corruption activities in the customs sphere". The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility of using the materials of the project to improve the practice of combating corruption in the Ural Customs Administration and other customs administrations of Russia.

Sextortion is a gendered form of corruption that takes place when those trusted with power abuse it, to sexually take advantage of those dependent on that power. This type of crime has long been anonymous but it is gaining importance through reports, studies and awareness actions by well-known international organizations.  The purpose of this study was to review sextortion from a corruption point of view. As well as to examine if sextortion has been integrated in Sida’s anticorruption agenda and map efficient actions against sextortion.  By conducting a literature study and interviews, it has been possible to create a comprehensive description of its challenges. A feminist approach in combination with intersectionality helped to visualize how sextortion is trivialized and attributed as normalized and institutionalized in some parts of the world.  The term sextortion is associated with several meanings that make unambiguous acceptance difficult. In the same way, it is difficult to identify sextortion in Sida's anti-corruption plan in spite of their commitment to fight sextortion. On the bright side, Jammu and Kashmir became in 2018 the first state in India to criminalize sextortion against women and sextortion has been included in the Global Corruption Barometer 2019 for LAC and MENA.  To conclude, the best option is to incorporate sextortion under anti-corruption laws. Where there is an abuse of power and an undue advantage, should be enough to invoke the law.