With multi-jurisdictional anti-corruption enforcement actions now frequent, it should be clear that anti-corruption enforcement is globalized. In 2013, MassPoint published an occasional note discussing the globalization of anti-corruption enforcement, illustrative cases, political and business drivers, the influence of the United States and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on other nations, and the direct and collateral consequences of globalized enforcement for private and state-owned enterprises. As events in recent years have crystallized the reality of globalized anti-corruption enforcement, MassPoint PLLC is re-posting its 2013 occasional note: The World Wide Web of Anti-Corruption Enforcement: Direct and Collateral Consequences for U.S. and Non-U.S. Parties (Private and State-Owned) with its original Middle East Supplement.
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Globalized Anti-Corruption Enforcement
The world wide web is no longer just virtual. Businesses of all sizes are increasingly crossing borders to seize opportunities in new markets. Since the onset of the financial crisis, capital flows to emerging and developing markets in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa have regained strength. Commercially, emerging and developing markets offer opportunities across sectors. Legally, doing business across borders comes with greater, more complex, and sometimes conflicting obligations.
As anti-corruption standards and enforcement practices become more uniform, cooperation among enforcement authorities will increase in frequency and effectiveness. In the FCPA enforcement context and in others, authorities have imposed record-setting fines, and likely will continue to do so with greater frequency, particularly where violations are egregious, widespread, or have broad impact. In such an environment, monetary penalties for avoidable violations may no longer be absorbable as the cost of doing business. As a matter of good business practice, companies of all sizes should take steps to strengthen compliance programs appropriately for their industries, organizational structures, home obligations, and the jurisdictions in which they do business.