Arms and Defence was rated the second most corrupt business sector by Transparency International (UK)’s 2002 Bribe Payers Index. The US Department of Commerce estimated that the sector accounts for 50% of all bribery-related complaints. Characteristics specific to the trade render it particularly vulnerable to corruption. Excessive secrecy, often invoked in the name of national security, allows corruption to fester and remain hidden often for years; the complexity of the deals makes commissions hard to detect; and the widespread use of agents and middlemen has allowed firms to remove themselves from corruption while their agents use it to secure contracts on their behalf.

Transparency International, as an international non-governmental organisation dedicated to the eradication of corruption, has been keen to work with governments and industry to address the problems of corruption in the arms industry. Since 2001, Transparency International (UK) has been bringing together governments, company representatives and civil society to explore constructive measures that can be taken. Conferences were held in Stockholm in February 2000, supported by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Cambridge, England in April 2001.

For more information, please see the TI's in focus on corruption in the defence sector.

Since the beginning of 2004, the UK Government, through the Department for International Trade and Development, has provided support to Transparency International (UK) to take these recommendations forward, and to build an international coalition that together can combat corruption in the official arms trade.

A conference at Arundel, England, in June 2004, brought together interested parties from defence companies, governments and civil society to review the progress made. The project has since focused on two main strands: the creation of a consortium of defence companies against corruption, and the implementation of integrity pacts tailored to the defence sector where there exists a genuine appetite on behalf of the importing government to strengthen their processes against corruption.

Click here to read the 2004 Overview paper.

A Defence Integrity Pact (DIP) has been implemented in Colombia as well as India. Other prospective countries are considering the tool. The Preventing Corruption in the Official Arms Trade (PCOAT) team around Mark Pyman has met with most key players from European and US industry, and a forthcoming meeting of these international defence companies will gauge European and US industry enthusiasm for the creation of an anti-corruption consortium and decide on the next steps towards its creation.

At the moment they are working together with the Polish Ministry of Defence to progress an anti-corruption defence reform. Click here to read experiences and lessons learned in Poland as presented on 15 November 2006 by Mark Pyman, Defence Project Leader at TI (UK) and Maciej Wnuk, Anti-Corruption Director, Ministry of Defence, Poland at the XIIth International Anti-Corruption Conference in Guatemala.

For more information, please see

• In Focus: Corruption in the defence sector
• Transparency International - UK