industry information > aerospace defence & homeland security > Ethics & Anti-Corruption

ASD launched the European Ethics and Anti-Corruption Working Group at the Farnborough Air Show 2006 and SBAC joined the group as a founder member. The Working Group prepared Common Industry Standards for anti-corruption to be applied across Europe which, after detailed consultations including independent advice from the International Chambers of Commerce, the Standards were approved by the ASD Council in April. The Standards were then opened for adoption by the national trade associations of Europe and SBAC September 2007 Council agreed to adopt the Standards at the ASD Convention on 4 October 2007 in Barcelona .

16 other associations have adopted the Standards and several more are expected to make the same commitment in the near future. The Working Group has now turned its attention to helping the national associations to implement the Standards, and on encouraging wider international action against corruption.

SBAC is a member of the UK National Defence Anti-Corruption Forum and supports its work, holding regular meetings to exchange best practice and to hear the views of recognised experts on anti-corruption. The Forum has also contributed views into the ASD Working Group and has identified two key priorities in the implementation of the ASD standards on which it will focus. The first is that they should be regularly reviewed to keep pace with good practice in the industry and the second is the need to provide help to smaller companies to implement the Standards. SBAC, in cooperation with the DMA, is focussing particularly on support to SMEs.