Fifteen Years Later: The OECD Reports On Transnational Corruption

On December 2, 2014, the OECD published its Foreign Bribery Report. The report reviews the first 15 years of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions and its application through the anticorruption laws adopted by the 41 signatory countries, such as Canada's Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the U.K. Bribery Act.

The report's analysis of the 427 cases of corruption since the Convention came into force in 1999 shows the following:

• In over half of the cases, bribes were approved by corporate management – namely, by management-level employees (41%) or by chief executive officers (12%).