U.S. Chamber Hires Bush’s Attorney General To Help Weaken Ban On Corporate Bribery

[ProSense]

U.S. Chamber Hires Bush’s Attorney General To Help Weaken Ban On Corporate Bribery

As ThinkProgress reported in October, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is pushing to overhaul the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the government’s main enforcement mechanism to stop American-based multinational firms from bribing foreign governments in order to win special business advantages. The Chamber thinks the law is too burdensome for American businesses and makes them less competitive compared to foreign companies, which are freer to engage in corruption.

The Blog of Legal Times reports the Chamber has now enlisted a powerful ally to fight the scourge of anti-corruption — President Bush’s Attorney General Michael Mukasey:

<...>

The Chamber may have decided to take on the FCPA now because President Obama’s Department of Justice has decided to do what Bush’s Department of Justice under Mukasey didn’t — thoroughly enforce the law. Under Obama, the department collected more than $1 billion in fines during fiscal year 2010, the most the government has collected in the law’s 38-year history, and more than ten times the $87 million collected in 2007 by the Bush Administration.

[ProSense]

1. No comment? n/t

[TheBigotBasher]

2. The various think tanks of the US used to be at

the forefront of right wing ideas, hence the name. They turned monetarism into policy from theory. Now they have nothing but pure Corporate greed.

[davidpdx]

3. Thanks for posting this

I was just now in the middle of a paper discussing FCPA for my doctoral class and hadn't heard about this. What a bunch of crap!

Did you know foreign companies who do business in the US and violate the FCPA can be prosecuted?

[AtomicKitten]

4. The corporations are afraid their gravy train might be impaired.

Not a chance with the Repub governor's creating more deficits to give them more tax cuts.