Chamber of Commerce wants to update anti-bribery law (updated)

[ProSense]

WSJ

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is urging Congress to tweak the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, arguing that ambiguity in the anti-bribery law and extreme positions taken by U.S. law enforcement agencies have injured U.S. business.

A paper to be released Wednesday at the chamber’s annual Institute for Legal Reform summit proposes five amendments to the 33-year-old statute, which bars companies from paying bribes to foreign officials to secure business advantage.

Among them:

• Adding a compliance defense
  
  
• Limiting a company’s liability for the prior actions of a company it has acquired
  
  
• Adding a “willfulness” requirement for corporate criminal liability
  
  
• Limiting a company’s liability for acts of a subsidiary
  
  
• Defining a “foreign official” under the statute

The paper, co-authored on behalf of the chamber by Jenner & Block LLP’s Andrew Weissmann and Alixandra E. Smith, identifies its purpose as “providing more certainty to the business community while promoting efficiency, and enhancing public confidence in the integrity of the free market system as well as the underlying principles of our criminal justice system.”

Scrutiny of the statute has increased in lockstep with the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement of it. The paper notes that the top 10 FCPA settlements add up to $2.8 billion — and half of those have come this year. (The other five landed between 2007 and 2009.)

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More on the Institute for Legal Reform here: Network of Chamber of Commerce affiliated "news" sites exposed

Updated to add that there might be something to this prediction after all.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Retroactive laws.

:woohoo:

[ProSense]

2. That's your only concern? n/t

[Historic NY]

3. They want cover from criminal activity.