Canada has been subject to ongoing criticism by NGOs, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ("OECD"), and others for lagging behind peer countries regarding its commitment to anti-bribery and corruption enforcement. Canada’s ranking as being among the least corrupt places to do business is falling. The release of a new report by Transparency International (“TI”) continues this trend, highlighting Canada’s poor record of enforcement activities and key shortcomings in its anti-bribery and corruption regime.
Given increasing negative international scrutiny of Canada’s enforcement of its anti-bribery and corruption laws and pressure on the Canadian government to elevate enforcement activity, companies with operations in Canada should anticipate increased investigation and prosecution activity. To assist companies to prepare for the risk of increased enforcement activity, we summarize Canada’s foreign anti-corruption and bribery law, discuss TI’s latest report, its implications for Canadian companies and best practices to minimize bribery risk.
In 1998, Canada enacted the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act (“CFPOA”) to implement the OECD’s Anti-Bribery Convention that Canada signed in 1997.
The CFPOA, among other prohibitions, criminalizes directly or indirectly bribing or offering to bribe foreign public officials to obtain or retain a business advantage, as well as certain accounting practices...
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