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Anti-bribery laws spotlighted in 13 OECD countries
Paris, 1 July 2003 - A comparative study of private-sector anti-bribery laws in 13 OECD countries has been published jointly by the International Chamber of Commerce and Germany's Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law.
Besides analyzing existing international instruments, the study covers the law in the Czech Republic, England and Wales, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. It is ICC Publishing's ICC's Book of the Month for July 2003.
The book, Private Commercial Bribery, is jointly edited by Thomas O. Rose, an American lawyer who led ICC's work on suppression of private sector bribery; Professor G¼nter Heine, Director of the Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology at Berne University, Switzerland, and Dr Barbara Huber, Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Commercial Law.
In a preface, Professor Albin Eser of the Max Planck Institute says willingness to accept bribes was long regarded as no more than a form of disloyalty to an employer or a threat to fair competition without full recognition of the far-reaching injury to the economic system.
"This underestimation of corrupt behaviour in the private economic sphere has, however, thanks to the efforts over the past 25 years of the International Chamber of Commerce, at last come to an end
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ICC policy manager Caroline Newton said: "This study is in the context of the existing OECD Convention banning the bribery of foreign public officials. Decisions will have to be made soon about whether the convention should be expanded to include bribery entirely within the private sector and the study will be of great help to those who have to make the decisions."
ICC has been engaged in the fight against bribery and extortion in international business for more than 25 years. The first ICC Rules of Conduct on Extortion and Bribery in International Business Transactions were published in 1977. The rules were updated in 1996 and again in 1999. They have been adopted by companies worldwide.
In an introduction to Private Commercial Bribery, Mr Rose notes: "ICC has taken a consistent position that no meaningful distinction exists between public and private bribery, that they both distort commercial dealings and that they deserve similar treatment in the law."
Private Commercial Bribery may be ordered from ICC Publishing in Paris, purchased online at the ICC Business Bookstore, or ordered from ICC national committees around the world.
The Business Bookstore
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