A company officer, employee or agent can be found guilty of bribing a foreign public official. What about punishing the company for whose benefit he has presumably acted?
Under the Convention, participating countries must take measures to establish the liability of companies (“legal persons”) that engage in bribery acts. Countries are also required to impose effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions, including monetary sanctions (i.e. fines and confiscation of the bribes and proceeds of bribery or property the value of which corresponds to the proceeds), and should consider imposing additional civil or administrative sanctions, such as disbarment from public tenders or disqualification from public subsidies. Companies accused of bribery acts risk serious damage to their “corporate image,” a fact that can also be very dissuasive. The most important message companies should take from the Convention is that they need to beware of practices that encourage or ignore foreign bribery—or risk serious penalties.
