Financial Transparency Coalition

NEW YORK – Even as anger over governmental corruption has exploded into protests across the Middle East, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been working to weaken the law that bans companies from bribing foreign officials.

This year's International Anti-Corruption Day is marred by a U.S. Chamber of Commerce attempt to weaken the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), our nation's flagship anti-corruption legislation. Passed in 1977, the FCPA was a response to eroded public trust in government following the Watergate scandal and the admission by Lockheed and some 400 other American companies that bribery to foreign officials was a commonplace practice in international commerce. The U.S. FCPA stood virtually alone on the global stage in the fight against corruption until the late 1990s, when other...