After the recent exposure of major political scandals in Brazil, the country’s population has been demanding stricter anti-corruption measures and greater control over relationships between companies and the public sector, based on international trends and an extensive and complex set of regulations.

The growing relevance of compliance within corporations is an upshot of this new trend. To help promote insights and outline concepts on this matter, FGV’s Sao Paulo School of Business Administration (EAESP) created the Center for Ethics, Transparency, Integrity and Compliance Studies (FGVEthics) during a ceremony held on February 13.

According to Lígia Maura Costa, coordinator of FGVEthics, the center will steer multidisciplinary efforts to study, reflect, innovate and disseminate applied knowledge on topics related to transparency, diversity, sustainability and workplace protection – subjects that are part of the daily routine of companies and society in general.

The launch event featured an important presentation by Pedro Ruske Freitas, director of Integrity Promotion of the Anti-Corruption and Transparency Department of the Brazilian ministry of Transparency and Comptroller-General, addressing the deployment of the Integrity Programs plan, mediated by EAESP professor Mario Aquino.

According to Freitas, the growing relevance of compliance came along with a need to invest in process integrity. The secretary pointed out that the Office of the Comptroller General has been focusing on expanding this trend through a wide range of different measures. One of them is the establishment of a board focused on promoting integrity.

Freitas explained that the integrity agreements will investigate causes behind acts of corruption, while also helping prevent these events. “This movement is important to change the culture over which relationships between private and public entities are built”, he said.

The seminar also discussed new tools available to promote ethics and compliance across the healthcare value chain, with experts from Grant Thornton, KPMG, Deloitte, PwC and Ernst & Young.

FGVEthics’ first partner is Instituto Ética Saúde, represented by the chairman of the institute’s Board of Directors, Glaucio Pegurin Liborio.