How the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention works
Launch library · evergreen read
The OECD Anti-Bribery Convention obliges member countries to criminalise the bribery of foreign public officials by their own companies and citizens, closing a gap that once let firms bribe abroad while facing no consequences at home. Before the convention, some countries even allowed such payments to be claimed as a tax deduction.
Each member country is periodically reviewed by the others under a peer monitoring process, which examines whether domestic laws genuinely match the convention's standards and whether enforcement is more than symbolic. These reviews often highlight a familiar gap between countries that have criminalised foreign bribery on paper and those that have actually prosecuted a case under that law.
Because the convention targets the supply side of bribery, the companies and individuals offering payments, it complements domestic anti-corruption laws that usually focus on the officials receiving them. Together the two approaches are meant to squeeze corrupt transactions from both directions at once, leaving fewer safe places for either side of a bribe to hide comfortably.