TIPS Newsletter - Oct 2025: TI-Defence: Confronting Corruption to Advance Women, Peace and Security

In October 2025, TI-Defence published “Closing the Blind Spot” marking the 25th anniversary of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. The report exposes how corruption in defence and security fuels sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), undermines justice, and erodes the WPS pillars of prevention, protection, participation, and recovery.

Corruption, through bribery, trafficking, collusion, and patronage, creates a self-reinforcing cycle: it weakens institutions, fuels insecurity, enables SGBV, silences survivors, and entrenches impunity. Despite these harms, anti-corruption and WPS agendas have largely evolved separately, leaving a serious gap in addressing gendered insecurity.

The report calls for corruption to be explicitly recognised within WPS frameworks and outlines five key actions: acknowledging sexualised corruption: embedding gender-sensitive risk assessments in security and peacekeeping; instituting survivor-safe reporting and integrity safeguards; strengthening oversight and whistleblower protection; and aligning WPS, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) into a unified framework.

Ultimately, TI-Defence urges governments and international organisations to treat corruption not as a secondary governance issue but as a root cause of insecurity. Integrating anti-corruption into WPS is essential to deliver genuine protection, participation, and equality for women and marginalised groups.

Please see below the TIPS Newsletter for September 2025. We look forward to seeing you soon.

 - the TIPS team

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1. Upcoming Events (register on our Events page)

TIPS | From Anti-Bribery to Cybersecurity: Confronting Emerging Risk | 28 Oct 2025 | London

TIPS | Indulging Kleptocracy and the Battle Against Transnational Enabling | 25 Nov 2025 | 6:30-8:30pm BST | London

Register here.

C5 Group | The 15th London Forum on Global Economic Sanctions | 13-14 Nov 2025 | London

Register here.

AMLP | 14^th Annual Anti-Bribery & Corruption Forum | 12 Nov 2025 | 9AM-5PM GMT | London

Register here.

TL4 | When Fraud Strikes: Navigating Investigations, Scrutiny and Reputation Risk | 11 Nov 2025 | London

Register here.

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2. Recent Events

TIPS | From Anti-Bribery to Cybersecurity: Confronting Evolving Risk | 28 Oct 2025 | London

On 28 October, the TIPS Network welcomed Tristan Atkins of Ethixbase360, Brooke Daley of Warner Bros. Discovery, and Robert Oates of Cambridge Consultants.

Together, the speakers discussed how organisations can tackle evolving bribery and cybersecurity risks, using anti-bribery lessons to boost cybersecurity, enhance risk management, and navigate the opportunities and pitfalls of AI.

We thank Meta and Ethixbase360 for kindly hosting and sponsoring, and TIPS Network Committee Member Tom Roberts for facilitating the session.

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3. Jobs Board

Financial Crime Associate, Financial Conduct Authority, London, Leeds, and Edinburgh. See here.

Head of Division, Intelligence, Serious Fraud Office, UK. See here.

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4. Items of Interest

TI publications

-        Investing With Integrity III: A Guide to Managing Business Integrity Risk in Impact Investing. See here.

-        Safeguarding football from illicit finance.  See here.

-        Improving the UK’s trust registration service.  See here.

TI blogs

-        Breaking big money’s grip on politics. See here.

-        Major step to strengthen Britain’s defences against dirty money welcomed. See here.

-        The end for enablers? How the UK’s plan to shake up anti-money laundering can be a success. See here.

TIPS Members’ Voices

-        Sanctions Due Diligence: Understand and Manage Rising Complexity by Dmitry Sachkov. See here.

-        Ethical Tensions and Professional Dilemmas in Legal Practice by Jasmine Elliot et al. See here.

Other items

-        Guns, Goods and Governance: Illicit Economies and the Foundations of Insurgent Rule. See here.

-        A super vision? FCA tapped to become anti-money laundering super-regulator. See here.

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5. Focus on...

Helena Maxwell

Director of Business Intelligence at FTI Consulting and TIPS Mentee

Why did you get involved with the TIPS network?

I joined the TIPS Mentorship Programme to expand my professional network and connect with others in the integrity and compliance field. As investigators, we often work in a bubble and rarely see how our due diligence reports are used in practice, so I wanted to learn more about how they fit into broader compliance programmes.

Please describe your experience as part of the TIPS Network.

With nine years’ experience in corporate investigations, I’ve valued learning how our work connects to in-house compliance functions. The mentorship programme broadened my perspective on how collaboration between investigative teams and in-house compliance functions can strengthen integrity systems overall.

Connect with Helena on LinkedIn.