We’ve talked in this series about how FCPA enforcement could do more to help the overseas victims of bribery. And after a fourteen-post build-up, we’re finally at our destination.
I’d like to propose the Supplemental Transparency Project. The STP would work much like the Supplemental Environmental Project already used by our federal enforcement agencies. And it would follow an FCPA enforcement precedent of ten years ago.
To understand what the STP can accomplish, let’s consider the goals of the three groups principally involved in an FCPA enforcement action: the U.S. government, the corporate defendants, and the overseas citizens whose governments have been compromised.
What does the U.S. government aim to accomplish? It wants to punish wrongdoing. But it also wants to promote good governance and help build democratic institutions. And it wants to promote commerce.
The corporate defendants want to minimize their current and future liability. They also want to protect their reputation and preserve their business opportunities. And they’d really like to level the playing field, so that their competitors don’t have an unfair advantage.
And what do the overseas victims want? They’d like to see their institutions become more transparent, competitive, and fair. They’d often like a formal acknowledgement that they’ve been harmed. And they’d like the harm remedied.
The STP can do all these things, and to a far greater degree than our current enforcement practices ever have. I’ll show you how.
Wal-Mart’s Victim’s Part I can be viewed here, II here, III here, IV here, V here, VI here , VII here, VIII here, IX here, X here, XI here, XII here, XIII here , XIV here, and XV here.
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Andy Spalding is a senior editor of the FCPA Blog.
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