U.S. and 37 Other Countries Agree to Take New Steps to Combat Bribery

38 Signatories Include All OECD Countries, 8 Others

The signatories that agreed to take these additional steps include all of the OECD countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the U.S.

It also includes the following eight non-OECD signatories: Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Estonia, Israel, Slovenia and South Africa.

Countries Agree to Take Concrete Steps, Including Sanctions for Agents

These 38 countries have agreed to take concrete steps in the following areas (partial list):

Sanctions even if agents do the bribing - ensure companies cannot avoid sanctions by using agents and intermediaries to bribe for them;

Discourage small facilitation payments - prohibit or discourage the use of small facilitation payments to speed up administrative processes (even in the few countries where this is legal) by using internal company controls, ethics and compliance programs, etc.

Sanctions for public programs - examine or further examine public subsidies, licenses, public procurement contracts, contracts funded by official development assistance, officially supported export credits, or other public advantages, so that advantages could be denied as a sanction for bribery in appropriate cases.

Explicitly disallow tax deductibility of bribes - fully and promptly implement the 2009 Council Recommendation that signatories explicitly disallow the tax deductibility of bribes to foreign public officials, for all tax purposes in an effective manner.

Better international cooperation - improve co-operation between countries on foreign bribery investigations and the seizure, confiscation and recovery of the proceeds of transnational bribery;

Ease reporting of bribery - provide effective channels for reporting foreign bribery to law enforcement authorities and for protecting whistleblowers from retaliation; and

Educate private sector - work more closely with the private sector to adopt more stringent internal controls, ethics and compliance programs and measures to prevent and detect bribery.

OECD to Monitor Countries' Progress in Implementing Measures

The OECD Working Group on Bribery will monitor countries' progress in putting these measures in place from the beginning of 2010, as part of their quarterly peer-review meetings.

(The new steps fall under the third part of OECD's three-part anti-bribery framework, which include: (1) the Anti-Bribery Convention itself (in effect since 1999); (2) Recommendations on the Non-Tax Deductibility of Bribes; and (3) Recommendations of the Council for Further Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.)

(See ITT's Online Archives or 11/25/09 news, 09112535, for BP summary of a U.S. company held accountable forForeign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations for paying a consultant to bribe foreign officials.

See ITT's Online Archives or 11/19/09 news, 09111925, for BP summary of a new Justice Dept. focus on FCPA violations in the pharmaceutical industry.

See ITT's Online Archives or 10/07/09 news, 09100720, for BP summary of a Securities and Exchange Commission case with a U.S. company/principals over bribes its subsidiary paid, which also discusses a new SEC FCPA Enforcement Unit.)

OECD press release (dated 12/09/09) available at http://www.oecd.org/document/35/0,3343,en_2649_34487_44232739_1_1_1_1,00.html

OECD "Recommendation of the Council for Further Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions" (dated 11/26/09) available at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/11/40/44176910.pdf