Recently, the International Law Association (ILA) requested comments on its paper which addresses the following “three fundamental questions: How did the fight against corruption progress in the last fifteen years; what are the chief barriers to fighting corruption today; and, how to overcome them and take the fight to the next level.”

Here is my comment.

Government – through law enforcement – can’t enforce its way out of the bribery problem. Rather, trade barriers and distortions are often the root causes of bribery and a reduction in bribery will not be achieved without a reduction in trade barriers and distortions.

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As highlighted in prior posts here and here, many Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions do not occur in a vacuum. In certain instances, the road to FCPA violations is laid years, in some cases decades, earlier by government policy encouraging certain companies to do business in certain countries to accomplish certain political objectives. In such situations, it is worth pausing to consider whether the government bears some responsibility for certain FCPA violations.

I was reminded of this dynamic when reading this recent White House release announcing an Africa Strategy to “advance trade and commercial ties to increase prosperity in the United States and Africa.”

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