ABSTRACT: Law No. 12,846/2013, known as the Anti-Corruption Law, was enacted, bringing with it requirements for companies to adopt codes of ethics and mechanisms to prevent fraud. Since then, compliance has gained significant importance in the national business landscape. This legal framework has prompted discussions on corporate integrity and its application to small businesses in Brazil. The topic is not limited to fighting corruption; it encompasses general practices aimed at creating and maintaining preventive measures against business misconduct. The adoption of these practices requires structural investments, which is why compliance still faces some resistance, especially due to the costs involved in implementing integrity programs. The approval of laws demanding corporate integrity, and the debates promoted by educational institutions have gradually helped to shift some corporate behaviors. Compliance is linked to governance and risk management, as it influences business decisions and requires the assessment of the likelihood of violations of legal standards. In this context, the trend is for these processes not to be connected at only certain points, but to form a unified whole — governance, risk, and compliance as elements of a single concept, which requires attention. Governance, risk, and compliance activities will be more efficient when interrelated, as acting in isolation can create conflicts between these areas. To keep economic activities organized in compliance with the law, strategic decisions must remain within the boundaries of legality, as well as assess the likelihood of crossing that line. If governance does not align with compliance or ignores the risks of a particular activity, there is no guarantee that the company will remain compliant with its obligations, or that the managers will not be held accountable for the company’s activities. Thus, there is a necessary relationship between these practices, and integrated action is the best way to bring efficiency to business operations. The economic literature on corruption highlights its negative impact on investments, which indirectly affects economic growth, as it introduces barriers to the free functioning of markets and reduces socio-economic development due to the concentration of economic power. Empirical results confirm a positive relationship between low levels of corruption and investment. The behavior of economic agents in the globalized market, with the practice of anti-competitive and illegal actions, prompts reflection on the need for a system that transposes regulations, combining the effectiveness, mandatory nature, and enforceability required for such a system, creating minimum rules applicable to the obstacles in conducting business activities. The Anti-Corruption Law is an important milestone in the fight against corruption, despite the pre-existence of a legal system that already provided for the sanctioning of corruption acts committed by legal entities against public entities. However, an analysis is needed, focusing specifically on small businesses, regarding the proper internalization of regulations, whose international standards are based on social, economic, and legal models different from the Brazilian reality. This is especially true considering the peculiar configuration of the Brazilian Public Administration, composed of three levels of government, national and subnational, as well as the various control bodies corresponding to each level of government.

KEYWORDS: Programs; compliance; small businesses; integrity