Canadian Lawyer

50 M A Y 2 0 1 8 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m ince enacting the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, Canada has produced four convictions. Canada's record on anti-bribery prosecutions is a tiny fraction of those of other countries with similar anti-bribery laws. This comes not from complacency or com- parative lack of will but due to fewer and differently shaped tools with which to investigate and prosecute white collar crime, say lawyers. "It is clearly not, in my opinion, a priority of the current government to get tight on white collar crime, especially Canadian companies involved in bribery and corruption overseas," says Norm Keith, who practises white collar defence and regulatory issues with Fasken Mar- tineau DuMoulin LLP. "Are employers taking it more serious- ly? I don't know," he says. "Are they being prosecuted and is there activity and investi- gations going on? No, absolutely not." The modern-day saga of anti-corrup- tion began with Richard Nixon. Out of Watergate came U.S. Securi- ties and Exchange Commission investiga- tions that led to the admissions of more than 400 U.S. companies that they had made "questionable or illegal" payments to foreign government officials of more than US$300 million, according to a 2009 research paper on foreign corruption pub- lished by Osgoode Law School. Congress enacted the Foreign Cor- rupt Practices Act in 1977. It was drain- ing the swamp, the prequel. As the only country with an anti- bribery law, the U.S. tried to level the playing field. The OECD produced the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, which Canada ratified in 1999, enacting the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. Around $1.9 trillion circulates the globe in bribes every year, according to the World Bank. That is two per cent of the world's GDP and 10 times what the world spends on development assistance. Bribery limits competition in the mar- ket and penalizes companies that do not bribe, increases the delivery of substandard goods and services, distorts prices, breaks environmental laws and wastes foreign aid contributions, according to the Inter- national Standards Organization, which developed the ISO 37001, anti-bribery compliance certification system. In 2012, Canada was ranked as the worst G7 nation in fighting bribery by the OECD working group on bribery, and the then-tough-on-crime Conservative gov- ernment was criticized by international organizations such as Transparency Inter- national as being soft on corruption. At L E G A L R E P O RT \ W H I T E C O L L A R C R I M E GARY NEILL Cracking down on corruption Canada is still lagging behind other countries on anti-corruption and experts say it needs better tools By Aidan Macnab S

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