ABSTRACT
Corruption regularly features in the international press, and there is now greater awareness of the damage that it inflicts both on companies’ reputations and on national economies. Since 1997, OECD member states have introduced new laws, similar to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), making it possible to prosecute companies in their home countries for paying bribes abroad. However, despite this apparent progress, international business people frequently express scepticism about the prospects for genuine change. As one US executive commented in response to a recent Control Risks’ survey:
On the surface we seem to be beating it [corruption], but underneath it’s like Internet security. People make it better. Then other people find ways to sneak through.
