CIAO DATE: 06/2010
June 2009
In 1997, the member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) adopted the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (the OECD Convention). The adoption of the Convention was a landmark event in the fight against international corruption representing a collective commitment to ban foreign bribery by the governments of the leading industrialised states - countries accounting for the majority of global exports and foreign investment. Because most major multinational companies are based in OECD Convention countries, the Convention was hailed as the key to overcoming the damaging effects of foreign bribery on democratic institutions, development programmes and business competition. The Convention now has 38 parties. It requires parties to make it an offence to “intentionally offer, promise or give any undue pecuniary or other advantage, whether directly or through intermediaries, to a foreign public official, for that official or for a third party, in order that the official act or refrain from acting in relation to the performance of official duties, in order to obtain or retain business or other improper advantage in the conduct of international business.”
Resource link: Progress Report 2009: Enforcement of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions [PDF] - 546K