‘Global Fight Against Corruption’ Lauded By AG Eric Holder In OECD Speech

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke yesterday at the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development in Paris. His focus: the “global fight against corruption.” Holder noted that President Obama has said that the struggle against corruption, "is one of the great struggles of our time,” adding that the World Bank estimates that more than one trillion dollars in bribes are paid each year out of a world economy of 30 trillion dollars – “a staggering three percent of the world's economy.” 

Corruption, Holder continued, “is a global problem that knows no borders.” He observed that “combating corruption” is one of the highest priorities of the Justice Department, which is using “undercover investigations and new technologies.” Since 2004, he added, the DOJ has prosecuted 37 different corporations for foreign bribery-related offenses, levying criminal penalties in excess of $1.5 billion, and criminally charged nearly 80 individuals. The pace “is accelerating,” Holder said, emphasizing that “prosecuting individuals is a cornerstone of our enforcement strategy because, as long as it remains a tactic, paying large monetary penalties cannot be viewed by the business community as merely ‘the cost of doing business.’"  He then stated, in a sentence particularly worth noting: “The risk of heading to prison for bribery is real, from the boardroom to the warehouse.”
 
Holder said that the DOJ is “working to fight back against financial fraud, another form of corruption, through the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force – the largest anti-fraud coalition in American history.”  Holder characterized the task force as a “broad and unprecedented initiative” that used “every tool at our disposal to restore confidence in our housing, insurance, and financial markets, and to undo the damage done by fraud to our communities and economy. We're aggressively prosecuting perpetrators, sending a loud-and-clear message that they will be found, prosecuted, and punished.”
 
After discussing the “trend of increased global cooperation among law enforcement agencies,” Holder concluded by declaring that only by “working together, across borders and jurisdictions, can we ensure that the ideals set forth in the Anti-Bribery Convention more than a decade ago are realized today and in the future.”