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5 Int'l. In-House Counsel J. 1 (2011-2012)

handle is hein.journals/iihcj5 and id is 1 raw text is: International In-house Counsel Journal Vol. 5, No. 17, Autumn 2011, 1 Key Steps to Establish an Effective Anti-Corruption Programme DEBRA KUPER Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, AGCO Corporation, USA 1. The establishment of US anti-corruption laws The 1960s and 1970s were transformative years for the US. The country was in the midst of a chaotic armed conflict overseas. Civil rights were causing turmoil on city streets. A political scandal resulted in the president's impeachment. The environment was under assault. Terrorism was on the rise globally, including at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. To top it off, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged more than 400 major US corporations with bribery. In the end, these companies admitted bribing foreign government officials, politicians and political parties to obtain or retain business. Shortly thereafter, the US Congress enacted the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA). The FCPA was intended to make it unlawful for US persons and certain foreign issuers of securities to make payments to foreign government officials for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. Later, the FCPA would be amended to apply to foreign firms and persons who cause, directly or indirectly through their agents, corrupt payments within the US. The hope was that the FCPA would restore public confidence in the integrity of the US business system. This objective was not limited to US markets; by 1997, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) had obtained the signatures of the US and 33 other countries for the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. The FCPA consists of two major provisions: one that addresses the bribery of foreign officials and one that imposes accounting and internal accounting control requirements on corporations. This paper focuses on the latter. 2. The Oil-For-Food Programme Following Iraq's invasions of Kuwait in August 1990, the United Nations (UN) and member nations, including the US, imposed a series of comprehensive sanctions against Iraq. To mitigate the sanctions' impact on ordinary Iraqi citizens, the UN created the Oil- for-Food Programme in 1995. Its aim was to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine and other humanitarian aid for ordinary Iraqi citizens. The programme appeared to accomplish its goals until it was suspended shortly before coalition forces, including those from the US and UK, invaded Iraq in 2003. Suspicions about programme wrongdoing surfaced in 2004, and, in 2005, an investigatory panel headed by former US Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker produced a 500-page report (Volcker Report) alleging that 2,200 companies in 66 countries as well as a number of prominent international politicians spent approximately US$2 billion to bribe Iraqi ISSN 1754-0607 print/ISSN 1754-0607 online International In-house Counsel Journal