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OECD, Finland
Finland is seen as one of the world’s cleanest countries in terms of dirty money and bribery, but the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development begs to differ.

The Paris-based OEDC said yesterday in a statement that it will send a “high-level” working group on bribery to Helsinki unless “tangible progress” is reported in June 2023.

The problem is that there appears to be no action to investigate or punish bribery cases in the country, the organisation said. 

“The working group remains seriously concerned about the lack of foreign bribery enforcement in Finland. No foreign bribery case has been detected, investigated or prosecuted since the adoption of the country’s Phase 4 evaluation report in 2017,” the OECD said.

A series of court acquittals in foreign bribery cases, between 2013 and 2016, may have discouraged law enforcement authorities and prosecutors to continue to take all necessary steps to detect, investigate and prosecute this offence, the organisation continued.

The situation is ironic – the lack of investigations and punishments is not of itself evidence of a deep-seated problem, but without actual examples of cases being probed and punishments made, it is hard to know how clean a country is.

According to Transparency International, Finland comes top out of 180 countries for being seen as the cleanest country for bribery and corruption.

The OECD said that in its Phase 4 evaluation report, the working group expressed significant concerns about the court’s interpretation of the evidence required to prove the foreign bribery offence in the cases that resulted in acquittals. 

In 2021, Finland commissioned an independent study to review these decisions and conduct a benchmark assessment of the evidentiary requirements for the foreign bribery offences in other working group members. The comprehensive study was published in February 2022. Among other things, it recommended that the foreign bribery offence be revised to remove significant deficiencies that may constitute a major obstacle to Finland’s effective enforcement efforts.

“The working group is therefore very disappointed that Finland has not yet taken any steps to consider the conclusions of the study, nor given any indication as to when and how these conclusions will be taken forward by Finland,” the OECD said.

The issue is sensitive given that, in recent years, a number of Baltic region states, notably Denmark and Estonia, were hit by cases of laundered funds routed from Russia, back to the days of the former Soviet Union.