The Compliance World Series

Holding countries publicly accountable for antibribery enforcement is a key to global compliance. Measuring performance inning by inning and posting the results on the scoreboard tells each government where it stands. And it tells the citizens of each country what their leaders are doing to fight global graft.

Last week we talked about Trace's contribution to the compliance scoreboard with its first-ever Global Enforcement Report -- a remarkable summary of "all known international anti-bribery enforcement actions since the FCPA’s passage some 33 years ago."

This week there's more good news. The OECD's Working Group on Bribery has just published enforcement data from 37 of its 38 members that measures  enforcement activity. It includes "criminal, administrative and civil cases of foreign bribery that have resulted in a final disposition, such as a criminal conviction or acquittal, or similar findings under an administrative or civil procedure." The numbers go back to 1999, the year the OECD's Antibribery Convention came into force.

The highlights: One hundred forty-eight individuals and 77 entities were sanctioned under criminal proceedings for foreign bribery in 13 Parties (member countries) between 1999 and the end of 2009. At least 40 of the sanctioned individuals were sentenced to prison. Combined fines of up to €1.24 billion have been imposed on companies sanctioned for foreign bribery. About 280 investigations are ongoing in 21 Parties to the Antibribery Convention.

The low-lights: Germany records the most acquittals in enforcement actions with 24. Japan, the world's second largest economy, reported eight enforcement actions during the 10 years from 1999, and France, the world's fifth largest economy, reported one. (Hungary, with about the world's 70th biggest economy, reported 27 enforcement actions).

The Working Group's enforcement data can be downloaded from the OECD's site here.