A Growing Focus on Combating Corruption: First Summit on Anti-Corruption in Mexico Jose A. Lopez and Hillary B. Levun - Perkins Coie
go to original May 28, 2014

More than 100 members of the Mexican legal and business communities gathered in Mexico City in late March to attend the American Conference Institute’s First Annual Mexico Summit on Anti-Corruption. The two-day summit featured 18 different panels of in-house counsel and compliance officers from Mexico’s energy, manufacturing and security sectors. Mexican government officials and legislators also attended and presented at the summit. Highlights included: 1) comparing the evolving regulatory landscape in Mexico to established Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and United Kingdom (UK) Bribery Act standards; 2) discussing anti-corruption initiatives in Mexico City; 3) best practices for ensuring compliance in high-risk transactions in light of the Latin American cultural landscape; and 4) addressing corruption issues in conjunction with the limitations of Mexican labor law.

Comparison Between FCPA and Proposed Mexican Anti-Corruption Laws

After discussing highly publicized cases brought in the United States alleging bribery in Mexico against companies such as Bridgestone, BizJet, and of course, Wal-Mart Stores, panelists stressed that companies doing business in Mexico could no longer rely on the mandates of the FCPA and the UK Bribery Act to define the contours of their anti-corruption efforts.

Indeed, various provisions of a proposed Mexican anti-corruption law are expected to be even more stringent than those of the FCPA and UK Bribery Act. The proposed Mexican law, entitled the “Mexican Federal Anti-Corruption Law for Public Contracts of 2012” (the Mexican Anti-Corruption Law), will prohibit bribery for the purpose of obtaining unfair benefits or advantages in connection with federal public contracts or commercial transactions in Mexico and abroad. In concluding that the FCPA, and to a certain extent the UK Bribery Act, would seem relatively routine next to the Mexican Anti-Corruption Law, once implemented, panelists focused on the scope of prohibited conduct under each of the laws and the potential sanctions faced by violators.

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