- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
The United States broke from a three-year downturn in bribery-related enforcement actions, while Brazil continued its emergence in the space, according to the results of the latest annual Global Enforcement Report by nonprofit TRACE.
The 2022 report, released Thursday, provides a global glimpse into all known bribery enforcement activity—investigations, enforcement actions, and declinations—over the last 46 years, following enactment of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Data from the report is based primarily on cases and investigations tracked in the TRACE Compendium, a searchable database of international anti-bribery enforcement actions.
The report identified 11 enforcement actions concerning bribery of foreign officials brought by U.S. authorities in 2022, which snapped a run of annual decline dating back to 2018, when 20 actions were brought. Still, the total is the second lowest observed in the past eight years, behind only 2021 (eight).
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Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson agreed to pay nearly $207 million following two breaches of its 2019 deferred prosecution agreement with U.S. authorities.
Analyzing the results of two recent reports offers an understanding of the U.S. landscape around anti-bribery efforts entering 2023 and where elevated risks might lie.
ABB agreed to pay $327 million in penalties to settle coordinated charges it paid bribes to win South African energy contracts. The company entered into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
The number of U.S. foreign bribery enforcement actions slowed notably in 2021, while the overall pace of transnational anti-bribery enforcement actions and investigations lagged worldwide, according to TRACE International’s latest enforcement report.
A payment by a U.S.-based company to a third-party intermediary under circumstances that placed an employee’s life and well-being at “significant risk” would not trigger enforcement under the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA, the Department of Justice stated in an opinion procedure.
Chinese gaming and social media company Tencent said it fired nearly 70 employees last year as part of its ongoing anti-graft campaign and will stop doing business with 13 Chinese firms that have violated its anti-bribery standards.
