OECD Antibribery Convention

What is this Convention and what does it do?

This Convention requires its signatories, under their national laws, to criminalize the bribery of foreign public officials and to impose criminal penalties on those who give, offer or promise any such bribes.

The Convention entered into force on February 15, 1999. The following 36 countries have deposited their instruments of ratification with the OECD: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. For the latest update on countries that have ratified the Convention, see the Trade Compliance Center's special website on Implementation of the OECD Convention.

The Convention was negotiated and signed by 34 countries-- all 30 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (offsite link) and five other countries: Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, and the Slovak Republic. Slovenia acceded to the Convention in September 2001, and Estonia in December 2004, bringing the number of signatories to 36. The Convention has no expiration date.

Who benefits from this Convention?

All U.S. exporters and investors will benefit from this major initiative to reduce bribery in the international marketplace. Bribery and corruption are unfair business practices that distort trade and place honest companies at a competitive disadvantage. This Convention is aimed at ensuring that companies win contracts on the superiority of their products or services, not because of illicit bribes.

How can this Convention help my company?

The OECD Convention obligates its signatories to criminalize the bribery of foreign public officials in a manner similar to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Targeting the offering side of bribery transactions, it requires signatories to make it a crime, under their national legal systems, for individuals or corporations to promise, offer or give a bribe to a foreign public official in order to obtain or retain business or some other improper advantage in the conduct of international business.

Under the Convention, signatories also agree to:

criminalize the bribery of officials of international organizations;
criminalize business-related bribes to foreign public officials made through intermediaries;
impose criminal or comparable civil penalties on those who bribe foreign public officials;
provide for the confiscation of bribes and bribe proceeds where such a penalty exists under national laws;
make bribery an extraditable offense; and
prohibit off-the-books accounts and similar practices.

The Convention encourages all signatories to work together to prevent and deter the bribery of foreign public officials in international commerce and to provide mutual legal assistance in combating bribery. Signatories to the Convention have agreed to eliminate the tax deductibility of bribes in the computation of domestic taxes.

Can the U.S. Government help me if I have a problem?

Yes. The U.S. Government is available to provide assistance and guidance to American companies that believe they are being adversely affected by bribery covered by the Convention. If you have evidence that a foreign competitor from a country that is a party to the Convention has promised, offered or given a bribe to a foreign official, you can bring this to the attention of the Trade Compliance Center at the U.S. Department of Commerce. The Center’s Designated Monitoring Officer will review your complaint and contact you for additional information, as needed. The information you provide will then be directed to the appropriate State, Justice, or Commerce Department office for follow-up action. This could involve diplomatic contacts with the government of the foreign competitor or the government of the country where the transaction occurred. It could also lead to an investigation in the U.S. if there is a potential violation of U.S. law.

In addition, information on the bribery of public officials can be used within the OECD to apply "peer group pressure" on parties to carry out their obligations under the Convention and take effective enforcement actions. An OECD Working Group on Bribery monitors implementation of this Convention, and signatories are held accountable for complying with the obligations that they have accepted. The Working Group also evaluates the adequacy of each party's national laws to meet the Convention's requirements.

The U.S. Government has established its own monitoring program to ensure that all signatories comply with the Convention. The Government reviews the progress of each signatory in ratifying and passing necessary implementing legislation, and it assesses the adequacy of that legislation. This monitoring program is described in the Commerce Department's Annual Report to Congress on the OECD Antibribery Convention (pdf), submitted to Congress by July 1 of each year.

Over time, we believe that monitoring and peer review will help to reduce the incidence of bribery in international business transactions. However, corruption and bribery are deep-seated problems in many countries, and it may not always be possible to intervene successfully in particular transactions. For the Convention to become an effective tool in combating bribery over the long term, it is important that we establish an accurate record of problems involving the bribery of public officials and the enforcement efforts of parties to the Convention.

Although the Trade Compliance Center will try to assist U.S. firms that believe that a foreign competitor may have offered or paid a bribe, you should be aware that not every offer or payment of a bribe necessarily constitutes a violation of the Convention. Each party is obligated to make the bribery of foreign public officials a criminal offense under its domestic laws. It has the responsibility to evaluate the facts of a particular case and apply its own jurisdictional and prosecutorial principles in deciding whether or not enforcement action is appropriate under its own laws. Not every payment or offer of a bribe is necessarily a violation of the law that has been enacted, nor can every violation necessarily be successfully prosecuted.

How can I get more information?

The complete text of the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions and related documents is available from the Trade Compliance Center’s web site.

If you have questions about the OECD Convention or how to use it, you can e-mail the Trade Compliance Center, which will forward your message to the Commerce Department’s Designated Monitoring Officer for this Convention. You can also contact the Designated Monitoring Officer at the following address:

General information on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development can be obtained from the OECD's website (offsite link)

[Source: International Trade Administration, U.S. Dept. Of Commerce, http://www.export.gov/]