Malakoff Corporation Berhad (Malakoff) recently organised a Corporate Liability & ISO37001 Anti-Bribery Management System (ABMS) Awareness Training and Workshop which was held on 25 -26 June 2019 at Malakoff Academy of Excellence (MAX) Auditorium. The session was carried out to introduce to staff and have them familiarised with the new standard of ISO certification that Malakoff will be adopting soon. The session also provided awareness to all Head of Divisions and Departments (HODs) on the amended Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009 with regards to bribery, corruption and corporate liability.

ABMS is the latest ISO certification that Malakoff is embarking on, in addition to our existing ISO management system certifications on ISO 9001 Quality Management System, ISO 14001 Environmental Management System, ISO 27001 Information Security Management System, OHSAS 18001 & MS 1722 Occupational Safety and Health Management System that have been successfully implemented throughout the organization.

En Mohd Nur Lokman Samingan, MACC Senior Assistant Commissioner, gave a talk entitled “Enhancing Corporate Governance by Understanding Legal Liabilities” with explaining the nature of corruption and the new provision in Sections 16A and 17A of the Act.

Starting from June 2020, he stated that the new provision will be enforced to enable the prosecution of commercial organisations involved in corruption. This new provision is in fulfilment to the international requirements under Article 26 of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), which refers to the liability of legal persons.

Previously, the MACC Act only focused on the prosecution of a natural person, i.e. individuals involved in corruption. Under the new provision, a commercial organisation could be prosecuted if a person associated with the organisation commits a corrupt act to enable the organisation to acquire or retain a contract or interest. Upon conviction, the organisation will be liable to a fine of not less than ten times the sum or value of the gratification or RM1,000,000, whichever is higher, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 20 years or both.

“Therefore, commercial organisations are required to create policies and have adequate controls to prevent corruption in its organisation.”

“This is because, if the organisation is found liable because it does not have adequate procedures, the Management of the organisation including Directors and Managers may also be found individually liable for the offence committed by the organisation,” he added.

Further to this, a trainer from SIRIM Malaysia, En Azhar Dollah, explained in depth on the ABMS which will be implemented by Malakoff. He also conducted a workshop with Malakoff representatives on Clause 4 of the ABMS on “Context of the Organisation” which covers the organisation’s internal and external factors, stakeholder expectations, ABMS scoping within Malaysia, and bribery risk assessments. Risk assessments are carried out in line with our existing Enterprise Risk Management Framework (“ERMPF”) which is based on the ISO 31000:2009 Risk Management Principles and Guidelines.

During the session, participants performed a Bribery Risk Assessment (BRA) and shared several corruption-prone scenarios and ways to curb its occurrence within various departments/divisions such as Human Capital & Admin, Corporate Services, Procurement, Corporate Affairs & Stakeholder Management, Local Generation and Group Finance & Accounts.

At the end of the workshop, the participants came up with the first draft of the BRA that will be further expanded to form part of Malakoff’s ABMS.