Adapting U.S. Compliance Programs To Incorporate Canada's Foreign Corruption Law

This article outlines some of the key differences between the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the Canadian Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act (CFPOA).

U.S. companies with a Canadian footprint tend to focus almost exclusively on the FCPA when assessing their foreign corruption law risk. While Canada's foreign corruption law, the CFPOA, is similar to the FCPA in many respects, there are critical differences that these companies should take into account.

CFPOA jurisdiction is much narrower than FCPA jurisdiction so companies should carefully analyse whether Canadian authorities will consider their operations to fall under the Canadian law. For companies that do fall within CFPOA jurisdiction, it is important to adapt existing FCPA compliance programs and transactional due diligence practices to take into account the CFPOA's much broader liability provisions and more severe public procurement consequences.