Memorandum to the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions
Recommendations by the International Chamber of Commerce on further provisions to be adopted to prevent and prohibit private-to-private corruption.
ICC believes that it would be appropriate and timely for the OECD, which has constantly promoted a policy of free and fair competition in international markets, to widen the scope of its condemnation of corruptive practices by adding to its efficient and powerful instruments combating international corruption a firm declaration against the forms of corruption between enterprises, as mentioned in item hereinabove.
Such addition would strongly recommend, on the basis of the now firmly established technique of functional equivalence, that each State Party takes such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish that it is a criminal offence under its law to proceed or attempt to proceed with any of the above mentioned forms of private corruption, and that this crime, as well as its prosecution, be made a high enforcement priority.
This modification could be achieved through an addition to the 1997 Revised Recommendation or through the adoption of a new Recommendation, as long as the new provisions be made part of the norms subject to the strict OECD monitoring mechanism (self evaluation and peer review).