El cumplimiento normativo y los delitos económico-financieros: perspectiva desde los códigos éticos de Argentina, Colombia y España = Regulatory compliance and economic-financial crimes: perspective from the code of ethics of Argentina, Colombia and Spain

Abstract

The design of ethics codes in corporations allows to spread corporate values along the company, to tackle the normative compliance and the prevention of economic and financial crimes, as well as to show a public commitment to prevent crimes and to insure an ethical conduct. This study focuses on analysing the ethics codes from the largest corporations from Argentina, Colombia and Spain, with the aim of underlining the main ethical concerns referred to regulative compliance and the prevention of economic crimes. The codes of conduct of the main listed companies in the three countries mentioned have been selected (Merval-20, Colcap-25 and Ibex-35). These companies are specially concerned in showing an ethical behaviour because of public visibility, monitoring and relevance. The main topics analysed range from the fight against corruption and bribery, the prevention of money laundering, the use of inside information, to the tax responsibility and the legal responsibility. However, these subjects differ in terms of presence and detail in the codes. While the fight against corruption and bribery is widely present, other topics, such as money laundering, tax responsibility or legal responsibility, are scarcely disclosed in the codes. On the other hand, codes usually deal with the inappropriate use of inside information extensively, providing the codes’ users with an useful set of good practices to prevent it.