Berlin, 8 August 2012.

This post was originally published on the Transparency International website.

The letter sent by more than 30 CEOs of large German companies (including Allianz, Daimler, Deutsche Bank and Siemens), underlines the urgent need for the criminal offence of bribing a parliamentarians to be revised, Transparency International Germany said today.

This is the most important outstanding requirement for Germany to ratify the UN Convention against Corruption. Germany has yet to ratify this convention agreed in 2003, ratified by 161 countries. It joins a list of countries that have not ratified including Saudi Arabia, Syria and Sudan.

“Today’s letter reinforces our demand that parliament finally strengthen the criminal offence of bribery of parliamentarians,” said Peter von Blomberg, deputy chairperson of Transparency Germany. “German parliamentarians are not only harming Germany’s reputation, the reputation of the parliament, but also the German export industry. Germany’s failure to ratify this convention makes life harder for German companies abroad. Agreements with foreign business partners are considerably hindered when German companies can be confronted with the fact that their home country refuses to ratify this leading global anti-corruption treaty.

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