104 Iowa L. Rev. 891 (2019)

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Abstract

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) criminalizes foreign bribery by (1) American defendants; (2) defendants who trade stocks in the United States or register with the SEC; and (3) foreign defendants who act in furtherance of foreign bribery while inside the United States It imposes accounting requirements on some potential defendants. Congress meant the FCPA to help developing countries eliminate bribery, and, in so doing, advance U.S. economic and political interests.

However, the FCPA has some fundamental flaws—flaws which U.S. enforcement agencies have particularly abused of late. The FCPA is vague. The reticence of defendants to go to trial has kept the courts from clarifying it and allowed prosecutors to interpret it however they like. The FCPA is also imperialist. These problems can be rectified by repealing the anti-bribery provisions and replacing them with a modified accounting requirement inspired by but independent from the accounting provisions.