Foreword

Corruption is the antithesis of good governance, and it is a direct threat to the purpose of state ownership. This report brings a comprehensive set of facts and figures to the discussion about the corruption risks facing state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and how they, and state ownership, go about addressing them. It is a first step towards developing guidance on anti-corruption and integrity in SOEs for the state as owners. This initiative is rooted in the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises, the world’s sole internationally agreed standard for how governments should exercise its ownership rights over SOEs.

This stock-taking report integrates responses from almost 350 SOEs in 34 countries and state responses from 28 countries, together covering Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

The report was prepared by Alison McMeekin with oversight from Hans Christiansen, both of the Corporate Affairs Division in the OECD Directorate for Enterprise and Financial Affairs. It was developed in an ongoing discussion with the OECD Working Party on State Ownership and Privatisation Practices (Working Party), as part of the Working Party’s ongoing initiative on supporting state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform in OECD and partner countries. A preliminary version was subject to a multi-stakeholder consultation during a Special Roundtable of the Working Party in October 2017, gathering additional input from participants including the OECD’s consultation partners, Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs), civil society and other international organisations. The report benefitted from the expertise and inputs of colleagues in the Public Sector Integrity Division of the OECD Public Governance Directorate and the Anti-Corruption Division of the OECD Directorate for Enterprise and Financial Affairs.