A Study On Legislation And Measures Of International Bribery In The United States

Foreign bribery means that during international business activities, a profit–seeking company bribes a foreign government official in order to secure or maintainbusiness interest. Foreign bribery is a legal issue, an economic issue, and a politicissue. The United States has developed a comprehensive system, with anti-bribery lawat the core, to combat foreign bribery.While foreign bribery has a history of several hundred years, the formulation ofrelated anti-bribery laws started from late1970s. In early1970s, during aninvestigation in Water Gate issue, the US government disclosed foreign briberiescommitted by some major US companies, which caused instability in some of thegovernments of US allies, making troubles for implementing US international strategyfor cold war. To prevent foreign briberies from negatively affecting US allies’governments, the US government passed and enforced the “Foreign Corrupt PracticesAct of1977(FCPA)”in December of1977. As a result, the USA became the firstcountry that forbids foreign bribery in the world.The1980s saw a major emphasis adjustment in international trade policy by USfrom “free trade” policy to “fair trade” policy. The adjustment made the governmentto decide to amend FCPA in accordance with “fair trade” principles, and put theamended FCPA as a part of1988Omnibus Trade Act. Since other countries did notfollow US to formulate a law like FCPA, the US government started to propel anegotiation for an international agreement to combat foreign bribery within OECD.With further development of the economic globalization process in early1990s，foreign bribery came to be a global problem. More and more countries began tochange their attitude from permitting foreign briberies to opposing them. With thepurpose of leading the world economy rules, the US government took the time tostrive to negotiate and reach the “OECD Convention on Combating Bribery ofForeign Public Officials in International Business Transactions” and otherinternational agreements for combating foreign briberies.Through a case-study approach, the dissertation introduces and analyzes briberiesin “Oil for Food” program between the United Nations and Iraq from1996to2003，which were stroked by US with foreign policy and law tools from2000-2010. Theanalysis of US work and results concerning the briberies in “Oil for Food” shows thatthere is shortcomings in FCPA.The department of state should have play a role ofsupervisor for FCPA enfoercement and the definition of a foreign government as bribereceiver should be treated in future legislation activity.This dissertation analyzes the formulation and the development of FCPA from aperspective of interaction between foreign briberies and US foreign policies, andconcludes that US foreign policy has great and continuous influences upon theformulation and the development of FCPA, and will improve and perfect the law infuture.