MOSCOW, October 24 - RAPSI, Ingrid Burke. France needs to clean up its act in terms of respecting its obligation to combat official bribery, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD or Organization), which released on Tuesday a detailed report assessing France’s implementation of the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (convention).

The OECD is an international organization aimed at fostering social and economic development around the globe. Organization member states work in close cooperation with one another to resolve problems hampering progress in these areas. 34 nations are currently OECD members. Most member states are European, but the Americas, the Middle East, Asia, and Oceania enjoy a bit of representation as well.

The Convention, which entered into force in 1999, has been adopted by all 34 OECD member nations, as well as Russia and four other states. According to the Organization, “All countries party to the Convention commit themselves to ensuring that their national parliaments approve the convention and pass legislation necessary for its ratification and implementation into national law.” This legislation should ideally define bribery in broad terms, and include strongly deterrent sanctions. To ensure compliance with these obligations, the OECD has closely monitored the relevant activities undertaken by states party to the convention since the early days of the convention’s entry into force.

Tuesday’s report, authored by the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Transactions (working group) was the outcome of such monitoring efforts.

The working group called France to task with regard to the number of prosecutions that have been carried out in recent years, expressing “[serious] concern that despite the very significant role of French companies in the international economy, only 33 foreign bribery proceedings have been initiated and five convictions… have been handed down since France became a party to the Convention in 2000.” The working group further noted France’s “lacklustre” response to relevant inquiries launched by other parties to the convention.

The working group took particular issue with France’s failure to eliminate its dual criminality requirement despite changes aimed at strengthening the country’s anti-corruption legislation in 2007 and 2011. French law requires the prosecution to prove that dual criminality exists when launching an investigation into the bribery of a foreign official. France’s dual criminality requirement holds that French criminal law "is applicable to offences committed by French nationals outside the territory of the French Republic if the conduct is punishable under the legislation of the country in which it was committed."

According to the working group, this requirement contradicts the convention insofar as the latter makes clear that such offenses should not require any proof beyond that provided for in its text. The convention further stipulates against any requirement of “proof of the law of [a] particular official’s country.”

The working group took further issue with the extent to which French legislation and its enforcement serve to allow companies and their subsidiaries to avoid criminal liability, noting that the applied and available penalties, paired with the lack of compensatory recourse, “do not appear to be effective, proportionate, or dissuasive.”

By law, bribery or any attempt thereof aimed at eliciting an international business advantage from a foreign public official is punishable by imprisonment for up to ten years, and a fine of up to 150,000 Euros. The courts can impose additional sanctions, such as depriving perpetrators of their civil rights, and banning them from engaging in commercial activities.

The working group maintained that these sentencing options are lenient when compared to other French criminal sanctions. More importantly, however, in practice courts haven’t handed down anything remotely hinging on the full extent of these sanctions. According to the report, “In two of the three cases of bribery of foreign public officials that have resulted in  final convictions of individuals to date, the sole sanction imposed on the individuals convicted was a five-month suspended prison sentence, without any fine or additional penalty. In the third case, a fine of EUR 10,000 was imposed on the two individuals convicted. It is therefore the only case to date in which a penalty for bribing foreign public officials has actually been imposed.”

On the bright side, the working group lauded France for its efforts to increase prosecutorial independence, and to foster regulations seizure and confiscation.

The OECD urged France to improve its anti-corruption game by adopting a series of recommendations in areas such as the investigation, prosecution, and sanctioning of officials; public procurement reforms; preventing and detecting transnational bribery; and raising awareness of the offense of bribery.