THE OECD Working Group on Bribery doubts Argentina’s commitment to fight foreign
bribery. Argentina still has no law to punish companies for foreign bribery or
prosecute its citizens who commit this crime abroad. Widespread delays continue
to plague complex economic crime investigations. Executive contact with and disciplinary
processes against judges and prosecutors threaten their independence. Urgent
action is needed to address these grave concerns. As a result, Argentina will
be evaluated again by the end of 2016 to assess progress. A high-level mission
will also visit Argentina in early 2016.
The OECD Working Group on Bribery has just completed its report on Argentina’s
implementation of the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials
in International Business Transactions and related instruments.
The Working Group made further recommendations to improve Argentina’s fight against
foreign bribery, including:
- Promptly implement the new Criminal Procedure Code;
- Reduce the very high number of judicial vacancies and the use of surrogate
judges;
- Seriously investigate and prosecute all foreign bribery cases as appropriate;
- Encourage companies to adopt measures to prevent and detect foreign bribery;
and
- Better protect whistleblowers from retaliation.
The report also notes some positive developments, such as legislative reforms,
new agencies for investigating economic crimes, improvements to the reporting
of suspicious money laundering transactions, stronger accounting and auditing
standards, and awareness-raising efforts by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Working Group on Bribery – made up of the 34 OECD Member countries plus Argentina,
Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Latvia, Russia and South Africa – adopted Argentina’s
report in its third phase of monitoring implementation of the OECD Anti-Bribery
Convention. The Report lists all of the recommendations of the Working Group
to Argentina on pages 62-68 and includes an overview of recent enforcement actions
and specific legal, policy and institutional features of Argentina’s framework
to fight foreign bribery.
Argentina will submit reports in six months and in one year on progress made
in implementing certain key recommendations. As with other Working Group members,
Argentina will also submit a written report to the Working Group within two years
on steps it has taken to implement all of the recommendations. This report
will be publicly available.
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