US Anti bribery

The U.S. continues to lead in enforcement against transnational corruption but could improve on its efforts by extending protection to more whistleblowers and by offering additional transparency in the resolution of foreign-bribery cases, an international antibribery watchdog said.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions, in a report published Tuesday, lauded the U.S. for raising the level of enforcement of its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act since its last evaluation by the group in 2010.

It also praised the success of the whistleblower program at the Securities and Exchange Commission for helping detect potential wrongdoing.

The U.S. has brought 156 cases under the FCPA or related violations, such as for false accounting and money laundering, between September 2010 and July 2019, the OECD said. Those cases resulted in the conviction or punishment of 174 companies and 115 individuals over the same period, according to the report. That is up from 88 companies and 71 individuals recorded in the previous evaluation, which took into account the period between 2002 and 2010.

The FCPA prohibits companies and individuals from paying bribes to foreign government officials to win business.

The report, which reflects findings of experts from Argentina and the U.K., is part of the fourth phase of a continuing peer review by the OECD working group, which monitors and evaluates the 44 member nations’ implementation and enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. The fourth phase focuses on enforcement, detection and corporate liability, and assesses each country’s needs and how it has implemented recommendations from the previous evaluation.

By Mengqi Sun, The Wall Street Journal