Seville’s parking-services company AUSSA has received an ISO 37001 certificate for anti-bribery and anti-corruption management and a UNE 19601 certificate for criminal risk management.
Present at the award ceremony were Juan Carlos Cabrera Valera, Seville’s minister for security and mobility; José Carlos Cabaleiro, Managing Director of AUSSA; and José Francisco Bonet San Martín, Commercial Director of Applus+ Certification.
During this event, the phases of AUSSA’s criminal risk management system implementation process were detailed and the benefits of this certification highlighted, both internally and in terms of client relationships.
The fight against bribery
Corruption engenders mistrust among clients and investors and directs resources away from managing the business. To help combat it, companies are encouraged to create anti-bribery and anti-corruption policies that demonstrate their commitment to best practice in this field.
Spanish standard
UNE 19601 sets out guidelines for implementing a
compliance management system with a view to preventing the risk of criminal activity for which the company will ultimately be held responsible. Taking the requirements of widely recognised international standards (ISO 19600, for example) as a basis,
Applus+ Certification has developed its own certification framework for criminal risk management systems. The objective of such a system is to provide evidence of a company’s commitment to lawful and ethical behaviour. If the system is in place before a criminal act is committed, its existence can prove an exculpatory or mitigating factor in the sentence that is ultimately handed down to the company for the crime committed.
At an international level, ISO 37001 certification is used to demonstrate a company’s compliance with anti-bribery and anti-corruption practices. The simple fact of having an anti-bribery management system in place does not guarantee that a crime has not been committed in the past, nor that it will not be committed in the future, but the implementation of measures to prevent, detect and deal with bribery-related risks does make such crimes less likely.