Governments' Enforcement of Corporate Bribery Laws: A Call for a Two-Track Regulatory Regime

Abstract

Internationally, there is a trend toward a regulatory regime for corporate bribery with more emphasis on <i>ex ante</i> oversight and preventive systems, and less emphasis on investigations driven by suspected crime. Governments want the benefits associated with civil law regulation – including corporate self-regulation and the flexibility associated with non-trial resolutions, although such tools compromise values of criminal justice. In this article, we describe current legislative patterns and developments, and explain why governments need to learn from other areas of risk-based regulation, and establish a two-track regulatory regime consisting of a forward-looking administrative/civil law system with a focus on crime prevention and a backward-looking criminal law process for investigation of criminal incidents. A clearer institutional distinction between intrinsically different regulatory tasks will secure a more efficient regulation of corporate bribery and other forms of corporate misconduct.