News

USIS Washington File

23 May 2000

Text: State Announces New Brochure on Corruption

(Publication aims to help global businesses) (490)

State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher May 22 announced the
publication of "Fighting Global Corruption: Business Risk Management,"
a brochure designed to assist businesspeople in coping with corrupt
practices in international business.

Boucher emphasized the U.S. foreign policy interest in fighting
corruption and the U.S. role in this area. He noted the enactment of
the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and U.S. leadership in
advancing the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Bribery Convention and the Inter-American Convention Against
Corruption.

The brochure offers business organizations guidelines for developing a
strategy to cope with bribery, extortion and graft, and details U.S.
and international anticorruption initiatives. It can be found on the
State Department Web site at:
http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/0005_inl_corruption.pdf

Following is the text of the Boucher statement

(begin text)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Office of the Spokesman May 22, 2000

STATEMENT BY RICHARD A. BOUCHER, SPOKESMAN

Brochure On Fighting Global Corruption: Business Risk Management

The U.S. Department of State has published a brochure on "Fighting
Global Corruption: Business Risk Management," intended to assist
global businesses and organizations navigate the international
anticorruption environment.

The fight against corruption is a high priority in U.S. foreign
policy. The United States has taken a leadership position in combating
overseas commercial bribery beginning with the enactment in 1977 of
the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and more recently, with the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Bribery
Convention, and the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption. In
February 1999, Vice President Gore chaired the first Global Forum on
Fighting Corruption that was attended by participants from over 90
countries. Since that time, the U.S. Government has been working with
other partners globally, regionally and bilaterally on promoting
issues of good governance, transparency, and public integrity.

In addition to presenting U.S. Government international anticorruption
policy and surveying the growing number of global and regional
anticorruption and transparency initiatives, the brochure underscores
corporate compliance programs and corporate governance. The brochure
also provides general guidance to businesses, individuals, and others
on reporting procedures relating to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
and corruption.

Specifically, the brochure provides to companies guidance for
developing an anticorruption strategy -- detection and prevention
measures, including encouraging upper management to be involved in
developing and enforcing corporate compliance programs and codes of
conduct. The brochure also focuses on issues concerning due diligence,
auditing, internal accounting controls, and ethics training. The
second part of the brochure stresses the important relationship
between corporate governance by businesses and public governance by
governments in nurturing the investment climate and building a more
democratic rule of law-based society in nations around the world.

We hope the brochure demonstrates how government and business can work
together to combat the problem of corruption to enhance governance and
transparency worldwide.

The full text of the brochure is also available for downloading from
the State Department web site at:
http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/0005_inl_corruption.pdf

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)