Regulations On Transnational Commercial Bribery

With the prosperity of transnational business, transnational commercial briberyhas become a global problem that has long burdened the global economy andweakened governments. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is the first domesticlegislation against transnational commercial bribery, which prohibits the act ofproviding bribery to a foreign public official by US citizens or companies. After that,the international community has realized the importance of regulation on transnationalcommercial bribery and taken relative measures. UN Convention against Corruptionis the most notable international achievement in this area for its broad coverage.Recently, China has criminalized the bribery of foreign officials in its EighthAmendment of Criminal Law; Russia also amended its law against bribery, and madeit applicable to the bribery of foreign officials. United Kingdom has also stepped upits enforcement efforts against corruption through the enactment of the UK BriberyAct in2010, which came into force in2011. In addition to two general offences andthe offence of bribery of foreign public officials, the new act has created greateraccountability on commercial organizations in preventing bribery by making it acrime for a corporation to fail to prevent bribery. It also has a broad extraterritorialreach, applying to any corporation that conducts any "part of a business" in UK, regardless of any other nexus to the United Kingdom, which may challenge thetheories on jurisdiction.This article consists of three parts. Part one gives a definition on transnationalcommercial bribery from the broadest sense and briefly reviewed the hazard ofbribery and the necessity of legal regulation over bribery in transnational business.Part two introduces the historical anti-bribery framework in UK and theenactment of the new Bribery Act. This part also presents the outline of the BriberyAct, and highlights the characteristic and innovation in the new act. The Author takemuch efforts in analyzing the problem of exterritorial jurisdiction, by comparing theAct with FCPA and the UN Convention against Corruption.Part three introduces how the transnational commercial bribery will affectChina’s economy and what China has done to regulate bribery. The author gives hersuggestions on combating transnational commercial bribery at the end of this article.Combating transnational commercial bribery is a “global consensus”. However,in China, none of the current literatures is written from the perspective of UK BriberyAct. The author has showed her interest in the new Act after its enforcement. In theauthor’s view, the provisions in the Act can be both revolutionary and dangerous. Thisarticle is written with the hope that it may give the readers a brief view of how far theBribery Act has gone in combating transnational commercial bribery and what weChina has to do.