A March 2011 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD’s) Working Group on Bribery characterized Germany as assuming a “leading position” in the investigation and prosecution of foreign bribery cases. “Germany’s enforcement has increased steadily and resulted in a significant number of prosecutions and sanctions imposed in foreign bribery-related cases against individuals,” the OECD stated. The OECD’s June 2013 Annual Report bears this out. The report reflects that Germany has the world’s second most total bribery cases since 1999 (88 cases; the United States, by contrast, pursued 139 cases, and the United Kingdom pursued only 7). Similarly, Transparency International rates Germany as having “active enforcement” of the OECD’s Anti-Bribery Convention. Germany, in short, has joined the United States as the world’s leaders in foreign bribery prosecutions, with the UK (surprisingly to many caught up in the initial hype surrounding the UK Bribery Act) a fairly distant third. Accordingly, companies doing business in Germany or with German companies are well advised to make themselves familiar with Germany’s anticorruption laws.

Originally Published in ZDAR - January 2014.