Author: ewegener
At this year’s Transparency International Movement Summit, the session “A Fragile Peace: Mobilising Our Movement for Accountability and Oversight in Defence and Security Sectors” brought together voices from across the globe to tackle one of the toughest questions in the fight against corruption: how can we ensure accountability in a sector defined by secrecy? Programme Officer Leah Pickering shares her reflections on the session.
Hosted by Transparency International Defence & Security (TI-DS), the session gathered voices from across the TI Movement to explore how chapters are confronting corruption risks in a sector long shrouded in secrecy, where opacity is routinely defended under the guise of national security. What emerged was not just a list of challenges but a shared story of collective courage, a determination to stand together, to keep pushing for transparency and accountability, and to uphold integrity even in the most closed systems.
Facing Secrecy with Courage
Across continents and contexts, from Armenia to Nigeria, and Malaysia to Czechia and Colombia, the discussions underscored a shared reality: while defence and security oversight is crucial for accountable governance, it is still not widely institutionalised. Access to information remains limited, and civil society engagement in this area is only beginning to gain recognition as a valuable contribution rather than an exception.
Sona Ayvazyan of TI Armenia described how access to information is constrained not only by law but also by moral and political sensitivities. Working in a context of conflict and hybrid warfare, she asked a crucial question: how much transparency is safe to demand during times of war?
For Abubakar Jimoh of TI Nigeria (CISLAC), courage has meant confronting power directly. As Nigeria’s defence budget ballooned, CISLAC exposed large-scale mismanagement and illicit financial flows that drained public resources. The backlash was severe, even their Abuja office was attacked, but persistence and coalition-building with media and oversight bodies led to real accountability, including the arrest of senior officials.
In Malaysia, Justin Bryann Jarret explained how secrecy laws make it nearly impossible to access defence information. The Littoral Combat Ship scandal, where billions were spent but no ships delivered, revealed the cost of opacity. By reframing transparency as a tool for efficiency and military effectiveness, TI Malaysia built trust with mid-level defence officials and opened new channels for dialogue.
These stories show that in the face of resistance, courage is often about persistence—finding ways to keep the conversation alive when others try to shut it down.
Building Trust and Reframing Transparency
Speakers agreed that transparency should not be framed as a threat to national security but as its foundation. Marek Chromy of TI Czechia described how their chapter uses data-driven advocacy to show that corruption in procurement weakens, rather than strengthens, defence capabilities. By cooperating with academics and reform-minded officials, they are building credibility and demonstrating that integrity can serve the interests of national defence.
Similarly, Mario Blanco from TI Colombia reflected on the “conflict-corruption nexus,” where corruption fuels violence and violence, in turn, conceals corruption. His chapter’s work developing sector-specific anti-corruption guides and integrity offices shows how collaboration within institutions can turn lessons into reform.
Across diverse contexts, chapters continue to identify constructive partners within government, officials who share a similar aspiration for greater accountability. In this regard, collective courage extends beyond confronting power; it also involves engaging those within institutions who seek to reform them from the inside.
Looking Forward: Turning Courage into Action
The discussion closed with a sense of shared purpose. Chapters may operate in vastly different political and security environments, but the obstacles and the opportunities are strikingly similar. There is growing momentum for a Movement-wide campaign for transparency and integrity in defence and security: a global push that aligns messages, shares expertise, and amplifies each chapter’s impact.
Moving forward, the TI Movement can:
- Coordinate advocacy across chapters to strengthen collective influence.
- Re-examine how the Movement applies frameworks like the Tshwane Principles to ensure they remain relevant across different political and security contexts.
- Build cross-sector partnerships with academia, think tanks, and reform-minded officials.
- Showcase success stories where transparency has improved defence outcomes.
- Continue reframing transparency as a strategic advantage rather than a security risk.
The session, A Fragile Peace, made one thing clear: integrity in defence requires determination, collaboration, and courage. In an age of rising militarisation and shrinking civic space, our collective action is what can turn principles into results.
If well-balanced, transparency and secrecy can mutually reinforce national security. But in defence and security, transparency trade-offs are often made where they are not needed. How to master this balancing act between national security and oversight? Senior Policy Officer, Emily Wegener, describes how ‘Creating Access: Strengthening And Expanding Information Governance In Defence’, our new quick-start-guide to access to information in defence and security, provides hands-on guidance on this question.
Information is power. Access to information (ATI) legislation and frameworks aim to regulate how this power is distributed. In more technical terms, ATI is known as a specific aspect of governance that involves the intentional disclosure of information. It mandates the proactive release of key information that is relevant to the public, in an accessible, accurate and timely manner. This commonly relates to releasing key information such as budgets, larger purchases, and project evaluations. Through ATI legislation and frameworks, civil society and media can often also request the publication of further, otherwise undisclosed information.
In defence and security, this process is a bit more complex. Requests for data release need to be balanced against potential harm to national security that could be caused by releasing the requested data. This makes transparency in the defence sector a constant balancing act between state secrecy and the public’s right to information. This often complicates effective oversight from media, civil society, and other independent oversight bodies such as parliamentary committees and ombudsmen.
Source: Creating Access: Strengthening And Expanding Information Governance In Defence (2025)
There are legitimate reasons for classifying information: if its release could lead to individual or widespread loss of life, cause serious damage to military capability, impact ongoing investigations or prosecutions, or threaten national security, public health, trade secrets, or economic stability of a State or friendly States. For example, publishing the identities of confidential sources, or details about the vulnerabilities and capabilities of critical infrastructure are obvious cases in which the risk of danger to national security outweighs any potential benefit to the public interest. We hence cannot demand the same degree of openness from defence and security institutions as from other areas of government.
The problem lies not in that information is classified, but that too much information is classified. As our 2020 Governance Defence Integrity Index (GDI) showed, some countries de facto prohibited the release of any kind of defence-related information, whether sensitive or not. In many contexts, the law is vague on what national security actually entails. This lack of definitional precision can lead to overuse of exemption clauses, and put them at risk of being overused to conceal misconduct or mismanagement. Where declassification is an option, data is sometimes released with significant delays and redactions.
This presents a major corruption vulnerability. The less data is available on major activities such as budgets, audits, or project evaluations, the less independent oversight agencies are able to perform their tasks, and the higher the chances are for risks and cases of fraud, corruption, mismanagement and wastage to remain undetected. And the less we know, the less able we are to make well-informed decisions.
How to navigate this balancing act? Well-formulated ATI frameworks require that requests trigger a “public interest test” or “public harms test”. This tasks authorities to balance the potential harm of disclosure against the public interest in disclosure. There should be accessible procedures that allow for substantial review by independent bodies. This is not always common practice though: Of the 86 countries assessed in the GDI 2020, almost half were found to be at high to critical risk of corruption regarding their ATI regimes. Our 2024 report found that out of the five country cases explored in the report, only two had balancing tests in their laws.
A reason for this can be lack of technical expertise. To help with this, TI-DS has developed a quick start guide to ATI in defence. ‘Creating Access’ offers key insights, gap analysis approaches, and tools for immediate application that help assess how to ensure transparency vis-à-vis national security interests. It builds on evidence from our research and the Global Principles on National Security and the Right to Information (The Tshwane Principles). The toolkit provides three tools to generate a snapshot of ATI legal provisions and information availability, along with advocacy opportunities using global standards, multi-stakeholder partnerships, and national collaborative mechanisms: a legal diagnostic tool, an institutional mapping tool, and an action planning tool.
It’s a common phrase that what we don’t know, won’t hurt us. Corruption, however, hurts us most when it stays in the shadows. Getting the balance right between transparency and secrecy is not optional. It is what helps us all work towards the goal of making sound decisions that ultimately strengthen our national and international security and build a stronger defence.
By Patrick Kwasi Brobbey, Research Project Manager, Government Defence Integrity Index (GDI), Transparency International Defence & Security
I still recall the soft murmur of anticipation in the lecture hall at the London School of Economics during the Black History Month event I co-chaired in October 2023. The discussion that evening centred on the sobering truth that colonialism did not end with independence, as its aftershocks still reverberate through our institutions, shaping who speaks, who is heard, and who is written out. Those words linger with me. Now, as the Government Defence Integrity Index (GDI) Research Project Manager, it strikes me how similar hierarchies persist not only through geographic conquest, but also through data, research, and policy frameworks that too often exclude the very voices they claim to represent. As we mark Black History Month in the UK and celebrate resilience, inclusion, and the ongoing struggle for justice, I find myself reflecting on the lessons my work in defence governance holds for confronting these subtle, enduring imbalances of power in knowledge creation.
Introducing the GDI and the Decolonial Perspective
Corruption in defence establishments threatens peace and security by wasting public resources and undermining military capability and the public’s confidence in defence institutions. Yet, owing to the fact that ‘defence exceptionalism’ enables significant secrecy around the workings of defence institutions, it is difficult to monitor and understand defence institutions’ activities to pre-empt and resolve corruption risks. This is where the GDI comes in. It is Transparency International Defence & Security’s flagship global assessment of institutional resilience to corruption in the defence and security sector. It ordinarily evaluates 212 indicators across five risk areas, namely political, financial, personnel, operations, and procurement. Alongside these indicators, the 2025 GDI is piloting two sets of additional indicators, one on the gender dimension of defence sector corruption risks and the other, corruption risks in the protection of civilians and civilian harm mitigation efforts.
Since its inception in 2013 (as the Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index), the GDI has grown into a respected evidence-based tool used by regional and international organisations, governments, civil society, and the media. Now in its fourth iteration, the 2025 GDI data collection presently covers the sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe waves. We are close to completing the sub-Saharan Africa wave comprising 17 countries, including Liberia, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Madagascar, Uganda, and Burundi. Passed through a decolonial lens, my experiences from this wave mostly inform my reflections here.
Decolonial scholars remind us that colonialism was not coterminous with independence, since it has persisted through the domination of knowledge, representation, and resources. In this sense, like all large-scale research projects with global scope, the GDI operates within complex asymmetries, particularly disparities in access, visibility, and epistemic authority between the Global North and Global South. To create an index that truly reflects global realities, the GDI not only collects data or produces knowledge globally but does so equitably. This and its benefits can be seen in the GDI research process, whose activities are illustrated in the diagram below.
Source: GDI Methods Paper (2020)
The GDI Country Assessment Process: Building Inclusion into Research
Country Assessment Onset: Transparency International Chapter Consultation
The GDI is primarily produced for Transparency International national chapters – locally established, independent organisations in the Transparency International movement whose purpose is to fight corruption within their respective countries. As such, the sub-Saharan Africa wave began with a March 2024 consultation webinar with Transparency International national chapters in participating countries (e.g., TI Ghana, TI Mozambique, and TI Madagascar) and relevant Transparency International regional advisors.
During this interactive session, we sought their advice on conducting the research in their national and local contexts, including navigating political sensitivities, barriers to access, and potential opportunities and risks to researchers and other stakeholders.
This is more than procedural courtesy. It is epistemic humility. Through the discussions, the chapters and advisors confirm, complement, and challenge the global standards underlying the GDI framework, the GDI research design, its implementation in their countries, and the lenses through which GDI data is interpreted. In decolonial terms, this represents a small but crucial shift from extracting knowledge to co-creating it. As Peace Direct puts it, decolonising research means shifting power to allow for those closest to issues to contribute to the definition of questions and solutions.
During the Assessment: Local Expertise at the Core
Locally based country assessors, often PhD-level researchers with proven expertise on their national defence and security sectors, conduct the GDI country assessments. These experts ground their analysis in the intricacies of domestic policy debates that some external consultants are likely to miss.
Working with them – all of whom have a track record of undertaking field research, publishing in credible international and local outlets, and working with reputable local and international organisations – enables TI-DS to reject the antiquated hierarchy that equates credibility with only proximity to the West. We recognise that local expertise is global expertise, in that experts embedded within systems tend to possess some of the deepest contextual understanding. By prioritising national researchers, the GDI helps to affirm this, echoing the renowned Kenyan author and academic Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o‘s powerful advocacy for hinging the healing of the colonised mind on its realisation that it is the generator of its own knowledge.
Peer Review: Collaboration, Not Correction
Once an assessment is complete, TI-DS coordinates a rigorous peer review. Each draft country assessment is evaluated by two additional country experts. The purpose of this stage is not to ‘correct’ local voices with external ones, but to strengthen the work further by establishing dialogue between different epistemic communities. This exchange deepens the data’s accuracy, illustrating how diversity of perspective enhances research credibility.
Validation: Listening to Governments and Civil Society
The process concludes with consultations with TI national chapters and relevant governments, typically ministries of defence. We invite TI national chapters and ministries of defence to provide evidence-based feedback. For the 2025 GDI sub-Saharan Africa wave, more than half of the national chapters accepted this invitation, notwithstanding that many chapters do not have a defence sector mandate, interest, and/or expertise. Ministries of defence that honoured this invitation include those of Nigeria and Liberia. Rooted in mutual respect, this inclusive final stage not only ensures fairness but also helps foster data quality and the national and local ownership of the findings. This collaborative effort can advance positive change in the defence and security sector’s governance.
Why Decolonising Research Matters
From decolonial theories, we know that knowledge and its production are never neutral. Rather, they reflect the power structures that control them. When research in global policy domains reproduces Eurocentric frameworks by examining phenomena solely through Western epistemologies without national/local considerations, it risks misrepresenting the realities of the societies it assesses. Furthermore, if data collection and analysis are blind to racialised or cultural dynamics of power, the evidence base itself becomes incomplete. This imbalance, which perpetuates injustice and distorts reality, in turn, undermines both the credibility and the uptake of findings among local actors.
The GDI’s iterative consultation model, entailing engagement of national chapters, local experts, and governments, is one way of disrupting this imbalance. It allows for plural epistemologies to coexist within a single global framework. To decolonise, therefore, is not to reject universal standards, but to recognise that universality can only emerge from dialogue among equals, not from prescription by the powerful.
Towards a More Just Knowledge Order
Black History Month reminds us that history is not only what happened but also who gets to tell it. The same is true of data. For too long, the production of knowledge in global governance has mirrored colonial hierarchies: data collected ‘there’ but validated ‘here’. Local expertise is discounted in favour of distant credentials. As researchers and policymakers, we have an obligation to disrupt this pattern.
Building indices like the GDI through a decolonial perspective is not an act of charity or political correctness, but an act of rigour. It makes our findings more representative, our analyses more credible, and our recommendations more actionable. As the globally celebrated Nigerian novelist and essayist Chinua Achebe once asserted, ‘Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.’ The GDI, at its best, seeks to amplify the lions, i.e., the local voices whose perspectives are essential to understanding and reforming defence integrity worldwide.
Conclusion: Reclaiming the Map
The colonial cartographers of old believed that to control a space, one must define it. Today, the challenge for global research is to map without domination and to measure without silencing. The process of creating the GDI teaches us that recalibrating uneven racial power dynamics is not peripheral to research quality. Instead, it is its foundation. When those who live the realities of governance and security are full partners in collecting and interpreting data, the result is not only more just but also more accurate and credible. As we mark Black History Month, may we remember that the fight against corruption and the fight against epistemic injustice are, ultimately, the same fight.
As Mali’s military expenditure continues to grow, a new report from Transparency International Defence & Security (TI-DS) reveals institutional weaknesses in the country’s external auditing framework—undermining efforts to ensure democratic accountability in the defence and security sectors.
Titled External Auditing of the Defence Sector in Mali: Challenges and Possibilities, the report assesses the current state of external auditing in Mali, with a focus on its performance vis-à vis the defence and security sector. Drawing on data from a desk review and the Government Defence Integrity Index (GDI), the report finds that audit institutions in Mali suffer from performance challenges that manifest across its public sector mandate, as well as in specific failures related to defence and security.
Key challenges identified include:
- A fragmented approach to external auditing, with an overlap of institutional mandates and confusion over the roles and authority of each institution;
- A lack of access to information, particularly within the military, defence and security sector; and
- Weak incentives for institutional actors to pursue democratic accountability in security governance.
Whilst external auditing serves as an important mechanism for holding government to account, this can only be made possible if external auditors have access to information about the finances of the institutions that they are auditing.
The report stresses that while Mali has institutions with the legal mandate to conduct audits, their ability to operate effectively depends on access to reliable and timely information. The absence of both a Right to Information (RTI) law and a State Secrets Law leaves a legal void around what information can be shared, thus further weakening oversight roles due to the lack of transparency, particularly in military procurement and budgeting.
TI-DS emphasises that information sharing within government is crucial for the government to function effectively. In particular, procurement activities must receive appropriate oversight, and to do so, information should be shared with accountability mechanisms such as external auditors.
To address these issues and improve transparency, the report makes the following recommendations:
- Harmonise the external auditing function so that there is one primary entity with the mandate for external audits;
- Develop well-defined legal exceptions to access-to-information laws, ensuring national security concerns are balanced with transparency through public consultation and oversight;
- Legally prescribe information-sharing by the defence sector with other government tactors, concerning its spending and procurement activities; and
- Continue to collaborate with the public on various platforms building on previous successful efforts at citizen engagement by defence and security actors – with emphasis on information-sharing and trust-building.
As a result of the coup d’état of 2021, Mali faces an ongoing failure of democratic accountability, which is reflected in the absence of institutional checks on its rapidly rising military spending. This report underscores the urgent need to strengthen external auditing as a means of re-establishing oversight, promoting transparency, and restoring public trust in governance. Without credible audit mechanisms and access to information, efforts to curb corruption and ensure responsible security sector governance will remain severely constrained.
A French version of this press release is available.
At the side of the 59th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, TI-DS and partners co-organised a panel discussion to discuss solutions to the vicious cycle of corruption, human rights violations, and insecurity. Senior Policy & Campaigns Officer Emily Wegener shares takeaways and reflections from the event.
Security and law enforcement agencies are often the first point of contact between citizens and the state. When they abuse their power, the impact on trust and state legitimacy cuts deep. Corruption also diverts resources from the fulfilment of human rights and peacebuilding. This makes corruption both a human rights issue and a threat to international peace and security – yet it is not treated as such: anti-corruption measures are still often viewed more as a technical fix, rather than as a necessity to ensure the enjoyment of human rights and prevent armed conflict.
To mark the launch of ‘Sabotaging Peace: Corruption as a Threat to International Peace and Security’ last week, TI-DS co-convened a panel discussion with DCAF and the UN Human Rights Office (UN OHCHR) on ‘Corruption, Human Rights and Security: Strengthening Prevention Through Accountability’ in Geneva. At this year’s 59th session, the Human Rights Council (HRC) will adopt a renewed resolution on ‘The negative impact of corruption on the enjoyment of human rights’ — a timely backdrop for a discussion examining how corruption in defence, security and law enforcement undermines the protection and enjoyment of human rights.
Sharing headlines from ‘Sabotaging Peace’, Dr Francesca Grandi, Head of Programme at TI-DS, called for the need for a paradigm shift in peacebuilding, peacekeeping, security sector reform (SSR) and disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) processes. Current approaches prioritise stabilisation over reform and thus fail to introduce anti-corruption measures from the onset. Corrupt networks, however, don’t wait: they are quick to adapt and entrench themselves in post-conflict political structures. By the time a situation is considered stable enough to integrate transparency and accountability instruments, corruption has often already become endemic.
Upasana Garoo, Senior Advisor at DCAF, shared findings from the new report on Corruption Controls and Integrity-Building in Law Enforcement. She highlighted how corruption in law enforcement is systemic and strategic, and not just a consequence but also a driver of weak governance. Effective solutions should be grounded in an understanding of the political economy, aim at changing incentive structures, balance practicality with political realism, and be mutually reinforcing.
María José Veramendi Villa, Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Officer at the UN OHCHR, shared insights from a report published in March on the ‘Impact of arms transfers on human rights’, which highlights how the lack of good governance in the defence sector contributes to illicit arms transfers and diversion. The lack of transparency in the sector, close industry-government ties, conflicts of interest, as well as complex, transnational procurement lines exacerbate corruption risks in arms transfers. To mitigate these risks, actors should adopt a human rights-based approach to anti-corruption, which puts the victims at the centre and highlights that corruption negatively impacts a State’s ability to fulfil its human rights obligations.
Insights from evidence and practice on proven solutions
The problem is complex and widespread, but there are proven solutions. Key panel recommendations included:
- Adopt a human-rights-based and conflict-sensitive approach to anti-corruption: Design anti-corruption initiatives with the aim to prevent human rights violations and conflict, putting victims of corruption at the centre; and foster closer collaboration between national, regional, and international human rights, peacebuilding, security sector reform, and anti-corruption bodies, as well as coherence between policies and strategies addressing these issues.
- Ensure complementarity and a systems-based approach: Ground peacebuilding, SSR, and anti-corruption initiatives on political economy analyses that examine the underlying socio-economic and power systems, as well as the incentive structures driving corruption at different levels. Use PEA to identify gaps across the entire system and put in place measures that are mutually reinforcing.
- Build coalitions across the whole of society: Successful interventions managed to build ‘coalitions of the willing’ across media, civil society, government, donors and the private sector, to create the right structure of incentives and identify multiple entry points for change.
- Emphasize human rights due diligence in arms transfers: Encourage companies in the defence and security sectors to adopt human rights policies that included a due diligence process.
- Attach targeted conditionality to military assistance: Make the provision of military assistance conditional on transparency, accountability and anti-corruption measures (e.g. external audits, open contracting regulations, public access to information).
- Transform social norms: Examine the cultural and social norms that defence, security and law enforcement forces are operating in, alongside institutional weaknesses. Where corruption is seen as necessary, and is generally socially accepted, pair technical solutions with longer-term, transformative measures aimed at shifting social norms.
In fragile contexts, corruption is the glue holding together violent systems that have the power to block meaningful attempts at building peace and protecting human rights. Anti-corruption is a powerful tool to prevent and mitigate violence, conflict and human rights violations – if we put anti-corruption and conflict-sensitivity at the core of these interventions/approaches.
At a time of mounting geopolitical tensions and growing instability, governments around the world are spending record sums on defence and security, writes Yi Kang Choo, our International Programmes Officer.
Recent data highlights this move towards increased militarisation. PwC’s 2024 Annual Industry Performance and Outlook reports a 7% increase in overall revenues among the top 11 defence companies in 2023. Leading contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and BAE Systems are grappling with record-high defence order backlogs, with an 11% increase in value to $747 billion. Meanwhile, an analysis by Vertical Research Partners for the Financial Times forecasts that by 2026, the leading 15 defence contractors will nearly double their combined free cash flow to $52 billion compared to 2021.
These figures demonstrate a sector on an upward trajectory, buoyed by heightened demand and increased defence budgets largely due to escalating geopolitical tensions and conflicts globally. Reinforcing this trend, the 2024 Global Peace Index highlights an increase of, while global military expenditure surged to an unprecedented $2.443 trillion in 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
In this blog, we will delve into the importance of strong governance standards for defence companies, and outline the role companies, boards, and investors (who are susceptible to the risks of the supply side of corruption and bribery) in fostering a culture of integrity, accountability and transparency within the sector.
At Transparency International Defence & Security (TI-DS), we have long raised concerns about the risks associated with surging military spending. In our Trojan Horse Tactics report, we show that increased defence spending without appropriate oversight often correlates with rising corruption risks. In countries that are not equipped with the requisite institutional safeguards, an influx of funds is most likely to benefit corrupt actors across defence establishments, creating a self-perpetuating cycle that prioritises private gain over peace and security outcomes. Nevertheless, robust governance standards are not only essential for officials and government (the demand side of corruption), but are equally vital for defence companies and contractors on the supply side, particularly as the stakes continue to rise.
The Profit Boom: A Double-Edged Sword
For many in the defence sector, the current boom in profits is a cause for celebration. However, the rapid influx of funds brings increased risks to the industry, too. Despite widespread acknowledgment within the sector that corruption is harmful to business, companies continue to face challenges in effectively implementing preventative measures.
Corruption in the defence industry is also persistent. The combination of complex procurement processes and high value contracts creates a fertile ground for opaque practices, further exposing governance vulnerabilities and inefficiencies within companies. Notably, some of the world’s largest defence companies have faced significant allegations of corruption in recent years:
In 2014, a UK subsidiary of AgustaWestland S.p.A (now under Leonardo) was fined €300,000 – while its parent company AgustaWestland was fined €80,000 – to settle an Italian investigation into allegations of bribery relating to the sale of 12 helicopters to the Indian military. In addition, the court ordered the confiscation of €7.5 million in company profits.
In January 2017, Rolls Royce entered into record-breaking settlements in the US, UK, and Brazil to resolve numerous bribery and corruption allegations involving its . The UK and US settlements involved Deferred Prosecution Agreements worth £497 million and $170 million respectively, while a leniency agreement with Brazilian prosecutors amounted to almost £21 million.
In 2021, UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) secured a corporate conviction against GPT Special Project Management, a former subsidiary of Airbus. GPT pleaded guilty after a near decade-long investigation to a single count of corruption and was ordered to pay over £30m in confiscation, fines, and costs.
In November 2024, a fraud investigation was launched into suspected bribery and corruption at Thales in relation to four of its entities by the Parquet National Financier in France and the UK’s SFO. Thales denied the allegations and said that it complied with all national and international regulations. The investigation is still ongoing. Likewise, earlier in June 2024, triggered by two separate investigations of suspected corruption, money laundering, and criminal conspiracy linked to Thales’ arms sales abroad, police in France, Spain, and the Netherlands also conducted searches in its respective country offices. A spokesperson for Thales confirmed to Reuters that searches had taken place but gave no further details beyond saying that the company was cooperating with authorities.
As seen in the examples above, corruption can also be costly. When allegations are levelled against a company, lengthy investigations divert resources and cause reputational damage. Convictions or settlements may result in large fines, claims for damages and ultimately exclusion from key markets.
And the costs to companies are likely to rise. Increasing shareholder activism and Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG)-driven investment strategies meant that investors and stakeholders are scrutinising companies’ ethical practices more than ever. Defence firms that fail to prioritise anti-corruption and transparency risk alienating their stakeholders and jeopardising long-term growth.
The Shadow of Lobbying and Undue Influence
With defence companies forecast to have more cash available in the coming years, spending on share buybacks, increased dividends, and expansion will not be their only focus – it’s also vital not to ignore the risks of companies exerting undue influence on government defence policy.
According to Open Secrets, in 2024, up to $110 Million was spent by defence industries to lobby the US government (including political candidates and committees) in securing government defence contracts, earmarks, and influencing the defence budget to make certain contracts more likely. Amongst the 896 lobbyists, more than half of them (63.28%) consist of former government employees – a stark example of the ‘revolving door’ between the public and private sector which is especially pervasive situation in the global defence industry where significant conflicts of interest may occur if not appropriately regulated.
Whilst traditional lobbying activity with policy makers and institutions to exchange ideas and influence certain policies forms an essential part of the democratic process, the amount of money defence companies spend on lobbying activities, combined with a lack of transparency, may mutate lobbying processes into privileged access. It can also create opportunities to wield considerable influence over politicians and officials responsible for shaping public policy, heightening the risk of policy decisions being disproportionately skewed in favour of individual companies rather than serving the broader public interest. Moreover, for governments and industry regulators, this underscores the need for stringent oversight and transparency measures to ensure that lobbying activities do not undermine democratic processes or market fairness.
The Time to Act is Now: The Role of Companies, Boards, and Investors
Despite these challenges, the compliance and transparency efforts of companies should not be understated. According to the Defence Companies Index on Anti-Corruption and Corporate Transparency (DCI) 2020, most of the world’s largest defence companies have established publicly available ethics and anti-corruption programmes, with robust policies and procedures in place for employees to follow. Industry associations now also have dedicated ethics committees, and many companies participate in platforms such as the International Forum on Business Ethics (IFBEC) and the Defence Industry Initiative for Business Ethical Conduct (DII) which enabled ethics and compliance staff within major companies to access more resources and to receive more senior recognition for their work. However, there is still more work to do. Many major defence companies still do not publish or show no evidence of a clear procedure to deal with the highest corruption risk areas, such as their supply chains, agents and intermediaries, joint ventures, and offsets.
Companies have a crucial role to play to in building and strengthening policies, practices, and a culture of integrity, accountability and transparency within the defence sector worldwide. We call on companies to put anti-corruption and transparency at the very core of their corporate agenda, alongside promoting discussions on how to raise governance standards across the organisational, national, and regional forums in which they are part of. Companies are also encouraged to engage with civil society organisations and anti-corruption experts to exchange learnings, foster accountability, and encourage further employee engagement in the mitigation of corruption risks across the business.
Directors of companies should exercise their fiduciary duties effectively by holding executives accountable when proactive procedures and steps are not being taken to detect, prevent, and address corruption in the highest risk areas. They could also encourage the meaningful disclosure of the company’s corporate political engagement, especially any political and lobbying contributions, to uphold the reputation and long-term stability of the company as it poses a particularly high-risk in the defence sector.
Finally, investors in defence companies could emphasise anti-corruption transparency as an essential cross-cutting issue embedded within ESG initiatives, and to urge the companies in which they hold shares to increase meaningful disclosures of their ethics and anti-corruption programmes. Investors wield significant influence in shaping corporate behaviour, and by advocating for these changes, investors can drive long-term value creation while promoting ethical business practices.
The defence industry is at a critical juncture. As military spending and corporate revenues soar, the stakes for maintaining ethical governance have never been higher. Robust governance standards are essential – not only to mitigate corruption risks but also to uphold the sector’s integrity in an increasingly interconnected and scrutinised global landscape. By taking decisive action and establishing clearly defined, targeted processes, defence companies, boards, and investors can ensure that the industry remains resilient, competitive – and most importantly – aligned with the principles of transparency and accountability.