The Impact of International Cooperation on FCPA Enforcement

Abstract

This paper’s goal is to analyze the impact of the UNCAC and the OECD Convention in improving international cooperation in foreign bribery. For the purposes of this study, the U.S. actions will be used as a proxy to determine if the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention and the UNCAC were able to enhance the articulation between countries. Since the U.S. was the only country to have a statute that forbade foreign bribery before the OECD Convention, it is useful to perceive how the U.S. has implemented mechanisms of coordination among other countries when bringing FCPA cases, after other countries adopted the Convention. This paper is divided into three parts. The first part analyzes the OECD Convention and the UNCAC provisions about international cooperation and the modification it has provoked in the FCPA. The second part presents an analysis of the enforcement actions carried by the U.S. Department of Justice before and after the OECD Convention was in effect. In the third part, two selected cases are analyzed in more detail in order to assess the level of effectiveness of international cooperation in FCPA cases. This paper argues that the latest FCPA enforcement actions have benefited from international aid from other government and taken into consideration the measures adopted by other countries.