International Regulatory Enforcement (PHIRE)
COVID-19 and Corruption-Related Risks: High on the International Agenda
May 21, 2020
Nicola Bonucci, Tara K. Giunta, Corinne Lammers & Josh Christensen
As countries around the world grapple with providing quick relief from the COVID-19 pandemic to individuals and companies, many governments have taken a two-pronged response: providing significant public funds while simultaneously implementing regulatory changes aimed at quickly addressing the ongoing crisis. The availability of public funding, combined with changes in the regulatory environment, presents new opportunities for fraud and corruption, and a number of international organizations and enforcement agencies have begun to sound the alarm regarding this rising risk. Their concerns highlight the fact that this new risk environment may be one of the most troubling and unintended (but not unique) consequences of the response of governments around the world to the COVID-19 pandemic. To paraphrase George Santayana (later borrowed by Winston Churchill), “those who do not learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.”