In-sourcing Corporate Responsibility for Enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

In this article I first review our nation\u27s long-standing and active aversion to corporate corruption overseas, as principally embodied in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. I then explain how achievement of the FCPA\u27s goals is undermined by the uncertainty in current federal enforcement policies and the consequent ambivalence toward self disclosure exhibited by multinational corporations. Finally, I argue that the only realistic way to make up the shortcomings in FCPA enforcement that flow from the Justice Department\u27s limited resources is to motivate corporations themselves to police corruption in their foreign subsidiaries by giving them a concrete incentive in the form of guaranteed immunity from corporate criminal liability, and by assuring them that the company will not be debarred from doing business with one of the largest of all potential clients-the United States government. This proposed policy of inducing corporations to be responsible for policing themselves in the public interest would be merely another instance of America\u27s historical practice of yoking the corporation to society\u27s plough