Foreword

In adopting the Recommendation on Guidelines on Anti-Corruption and Integrity in State-Owned Enterprises (ACI Guidelines), the OECD Council instructed the Working Party on State Ownership and Privatisation Practices (Working Party), in co-operation with the Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions and the Working Party of Senior Public Integrity Officials, to monitor its implementation and report on it no later than five years following its adoption. It is in this context that the Working Party agreed to prepare a thematic report of national practices towards safeguarding state-owned enterprises (SOEs) from undue influence that will support the monitoring of the Recommendation.

The report has been discussed and approved by the Working Party, with inputs and review from the two other OECD bodies and their respective secretariats. It has also benefited from feedback from colleagues in other areas of the OECD and consultation with external stakeholders. The report was first prepared by Alison McMeekin with oversight from Hans Christiansen, both from the Corporate Governance and Corporate Finance Division in the OECD Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs. It benefited from contributions of their colleague Apostolos Zampounidis.

The OECD Secretariat is grateful to all the countries that submitted responses to a questionnaire issued in October 2021. The report was prepared based on their responses, as well as desk research and the contents of other relevant OECD Recommendations and documents that, in certain cases, provided data on additional countries to those mentioned. Country practices presented in the text appear primarily as they were reported to the OECD.