A recent survey of companies spanning 14 countries throughout the Americas, organized by Miller & Chevalier Chartered and Matteson Ellis Law PLLC along with 12 Latin American law firms, provides insight into corruption issues in the region. Four hundred and thirty nine respondents from local, regional and multinational companies completed the 2012 Latin America Corruption Survey. The results offer perspectives on the extent of corruption in Latin American countries, the effects of corruption on companies operating in those countries, the effectiveness of regional anti-corruption laws, and tools that companies are using to address corruption risks.

In this article, James Tillen and co-author Matt Ellis provide additional analysis that will be useful to compliance personnel when they are evaluating the effectiveness of their compliance programs in Latin America. In particular, they highlight four themes of the results and six corresponding takeaways from the survey findings for compliance officers.