The noose is tightening. The U.S. has had its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) since the 1970s, but aggressive enforcement is a relatively recent phenomena. A decade ago there were hardly any active cases, but now there are estimated to be well over 150 cases. The U.S. used to be an outlier, but now other countries are starting to enforce their own foreign anti-corruption laws, including Germany, Japan and the UK with its new, very strict, anti-corruption law.
Even countries that had ranked low in terms of enforcement (http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_focus/2011/oecd_progress_2011) are now starting to prosecute foreign anti-corruption cases. The first guilty plea was very recently secured under Canada’s Corruption of Foreign Officials Act. Korea recently indicted two representatives of a logistics company for alleged corrupt activity in China. And now Australia has charged six for allegedly bribing officials in Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam to win currency contracts. (http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/markets/newsfeeditem.aspx?id=148573656291621)
Perhaps unknown to many, but Note Printing Australia Limited (http://www.polymernotes.org/resources/npasecurency/npa_securency04.pdf) prints bank notes for many countries, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and, according to its recent annual report, Thailand. There has been no suggestion that Thai officials were involved in this matter, but this does mean that Australian business persons operating in Thailand can no longer rely on a relaxed anti foreign corruption regime in Australia. The Reserve Bank of Australia issued a press release containing the following:
Over the past several years much has been done to tighten controls and strengthen governance so as to avoid any re-occurrence of the alleged behaviour:
- Those charged with offences are no longer with the companies;
- The use of sales agents has ceased;…
“The use of sales agents has ceased.” The use of sales agents is a common tactic used to circumvent foreign anti-corruption law.
The point of all of this is that foreign corruption laws are no longer a U.S. specific issue. Other countries are now actively enforcing their foreign anti-corruption laws. It’s taken awhile, but the playing field is visibly changing and what had been considered “business as usual” is becoming much less acceptable – not only for U.S. companies, but also now for Japanese, Canadian, UK, Korean and Australian companies as well.
Thai Law & Policy 