The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)1 has become the United States’ prevailing anti-corruption enforcement tool. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer encapsulated this in his oft-quoted observation, “[W]e are in a new era of FCPA enforcement; and we are here to stay.”2 The United States, however, is not alone in its quest to identify and punish corruption.
Many now regard the United Kingdom’s Bribery Act 2010 (UKBA),3 which took effect in July 2011, as the world’s most sweeping anti-corruption legislation. The UKBA prohibits not only bribes to foreign officials, but also bribes to obtain private business contracts, and it imposes strict liability on corporations that fail to develop adequate anticorruption compliance procedures. Together, the FCPA and the UKBA have spurred a world-wide focus on identifying and preventing corruption. In this new era of global anti-corruption enforcement it is essential to understand these laws and the regulators’ enforcement priorities.
Understanding Both Acts
