Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Bribery in the Cultural Context.

Abstract

From as early as 1977 we have witnessed the progression of corruption within corporations and even more significant progress in the combat against corruption with the enactment of multiple legislation's such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and more relative to this study, The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977. FCPA compliance has several issues within multi-national corporations ranging from import and export issues, lack of transparency in international trade laws and bribery with improper payments to government officials, employees, and third-party professionals. Beginning with summarizing the literature about the concept of bribery, the scope, and factors of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, there is focus on the current compliance enforcement metrics from the start of enactment to the present day. In the next section, the theoretical framework outlines moral relativism and how it is more definitive of describing corruption. This paper includes a summary of trends in FCPA violations as reported by the Securities Exchange Commission and the United States Department of Justice over the last five years since the Bribe payers index in 2011. The countries that are included in the index and match the Corruption and Bribe Payers Index and how the enforcement should exist in the future are assessed. The purpose of this paper is to define bribery and connect cultural context to the FCPA cases in violation from 2014 to 2018.