How easy is it to circumvent a world-class lobbying regulation?
Amongst the notable media articles on lobbying that made it into my October digest was a piece on the Irish football association (FAI) ignoring its legal obligation to reveal its lobbying activities. There are two reasons why this story is super interesting. First, a football association can serve as a textbook example of a lobbying organisation. Second, the Irish lobbying regulation is widely considered among the most advanced ones, often serving as best practice, or a benchmark. But clearly, it has some serious gaps.
The Irish lobbying legislation defines lobbying generally (and rather broadly) as any “relevant communication” with “designated public official” on “relevant matter” — unless some of the exceptions apply. Without wading into the intricacies of the Irish act on lobbying, what the article describes undoubtedly falls under the “relevant matter — relevant communication — designated public official” scope. And none of the exceptions applies to a meeting where FAI representatives lobbied the Minister of State for Sport for a change in how the betting tax proceeds are distributed — an example of a particular meeting mentioned in the article.
The “Meaning of carrying on lobbying activities” section of the Irish Regulation of Lobbying Act is worth reading. As I mentioned, it’s a top-class definition of lobbying in a law which heavily influences other countries’ regulations. And still, an evident lobbyist can pretend they consider their evident lobbying as excepted.
This article is not meant to speculate about how could the FIA think they will get away with such a non-compliance. Probably, the strong backing from the global football association, FIFA, is what makes all national football associations so arrogant. No government ever reached any success in interfering with their football associations’ affairs; those that tried ended up having their national football associations’ FIFA membership suspended, and thus their clubs and national teams banned from any international games. Examples are numerous, including many from recent years involving developing countries, notably from this past October involving World Cup-bound Tunisia, or from 2006, involving Greece.
Of course, this lobbying scandal is not an FAI’s internal affair and any outcome — in theory, it may end up with two years in prison for someone — would hardly trigger any action from FIFA.
Whatever reason for their non-compliance, the FAI has not filed a single Lobbying Register report for 30 months according to the article. This brings us to enforcement: how come a notorious lobbyist roams free for so long, even under one of the best lobbying regulations on planet?
This example shows yet again that traditional lobbying regulations simply don’t work. In my opinion, any definitions-dependent regulation is doomed to fail. This is probably true for any regulation; in the case of lobbying, the body of evidence supporting this claim is large and growing.
To address the weaknesses like those exposed in this particular case, the new revised OECD recommendation on lobbying and influence (now open for public consultation through December 1, 2022) pioneers a new approach to regulating lobbying. Instead of relying solely on whether a lobbyist will self-identify themselves as such, also those being lobbied should disclose any influence activities related to a particular piece of decision-making. This so-called regulatory footprint will allow for cross-checking — a vital method of making sure any list of entries is complete.
The draft revised Recommendation on Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying aims to fundamentally improve lobbying regulations, with the regulatory footprint being one of many changes we want to introduce. If you read this article, chances are you can contribute to the consultation process. Please, have your voice heard! Or feel free to share your thoughts by commenting on this article (see your options here).
