Regulators that operate high levels of enforcement are both an indication of a regulator that moves decisively and transparently to punish wrongdoing, and of an overarching system that is "ineffective", a senior spokesperson has said.
Former adviser Andy Agathangelou, who is the founder of whistleblowing organisation the Transparency Task Force, said on the one hand, it was to be welcomed that regulators in some countries show their enforcement action openly.
However, he said that continued violations in the same sectors - such as anti-money laundering breaches or competition-related offences - indicated that companies' bad behaviour had continued regardless of the threat of punishment.
To this end, he said the overarching regulatory frameworks in such countries were "ineffective".
Speaking at the launch of the Global Violation Tracker Index, Agathangelou said: "We often use the Violation Tracker UK data to show the ineffectiveness of the regulatory response in actually changing behaviour.
"Their [the regulator's] modus operandi is to fine the shareholders - us, through our pension funds, etc - but that approach does not make the company change its behaviour.
"Why would they change, when they make more money through the bad practice they get fined for - and of course, the bonuses/executive remuneration/chief executive share values are almost never in jeopardy."
His comments came as the Transparency Task Force, in association with US-based non-profit organisation Good Jobs First, revealed its new global violation tracker database.
The tracker, as explained by Philip Mattera, Good Jobs First's violation tracker project director, draws on data from all the wealthier industrialised countries, including 17 of the European Union countries, as well as others where regulatory enforcement action is publicised openly.
The tracker covers all industries, such as mining and minerals, defence, agriculture as well as financial services.
It can be broken down by date, with data going back to 2010, and by company, so people can search by company name to view the number of known financial enforcement actions taken against a company.
Mattera explained: "The common denominator across all these categories is that there was a monetary penalty.
"We recognise this is not the full story - there are other ways in which companies might be called out for misconduct, such as sanctions that might not involve monetary penalties, for example,
"We don't pretend that enforcement through financial penalties is a reflection of the entire range of corporate misbehaviour, but we think it captures a pretty big portion of it."
The worst offending sector globally, in terms of the total amount of regulatory fines imposed since 2010, was the financial sector, as the image above shows.
