Patna: Under its global corruption eradication fight, the United States has adopted several legislations to address the issue within its territory and beyond its boundaries and its investigating agency the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was also working into collaboration with law enforcing agencies of other countries to accomplish this mission.
Supervisory Special Agent in US International Corruption Unit at the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI) Jeff Coleman while addressing a Webinar recently on the topic of curbing illicit finance organised by Foreign Press Centre Washington DC, Jeffrey Coleman said that it enacted Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) with Anti-bribery Provisions and Accountability Provisions, Transnational Anti-corruption Partnership (TAP) programme and formed London based International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre (IACCC) with US as its member to deal with the issues within its territory and focused on building partnerships with law enforcement in other countries.
Coleman said that FBI initiatives are focused on building partnerships with law enforcement in other countries under the State Department funded Transnational Anti-corruption Partnership (TAP) programme.
The impact of FCPA, the Act that born out of the Watergate investigation in the United States to check the use of slush money as bribe by the companies, improved due to US partnerships with law enforcement
agencies in other countries around the world.
Coleman admitted that while working in collaboration with law enforcing of other countries, the FBI sometimes faces non-cooperation from law enforcement agency of some of the countries and maintained that the non cooperation is either due to some political pressure or some other reasons the law enforcement agencies might be facing in their countries.
He said that in such situation, the role of IACCC and TAP advisors become important as they try to build relationships with those agencies and instil confidence and trust.
Coleman said that the cooperation was too less earlier in 2009 - 2015 as the law enforcing agencies were not working in partnership and were not knowing each other but now more countries were getting engaged in collaboration the combat is more effective and has larger impact.
Speaking about FPCA he said that it prohibits US companies and individuals from bribing foreign government officials for obtaining or retaining business.
The impact of FCPA, the Act that born out of the Watergate investigation in the United States to check the use of slush money as bribe by the companies, improved due to US partnerships with law enforcement
agencies in other countries around the world.
FCPA impact increased after four separate squads of agents were created in 2015 for investigation purpose. Over $18 billion fines have been collected through FCPA cases against companies around the world since then.
Coleman said that to address the corruption threat globally, the FBI squads are geographically focused to know their partners overseas with whom they developed relationship and share information more readily with greater trust. FBI is focused on building partnerships with law enforcement in other countries. The FBI has, 70 or 80 legal attaché offices around the world covering every country to collaborate with people on investigations.
Coleman said that the IACCC founded in 2017 by the National Crime Agency in the United Kingdom with several countries including US as its member, was formed to receive requests from law enforcement agencies around the world, and then coordinate the global response in cases that have crossed a number of different borders.
Director for Financial Transparency and Regulatory Policy in the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the US Department of the Treasury, Young Lee while addressing Webinar on US anti-corruption efforts, Curbing Illicit Finance, said that Treasury is committed to counter corruption.
Treasury foccuses on curbing the ability of criminals to hide their identities behind corporate structures to address deficiencies in the US anti-money laundering regime.
The Anti-money Laundering Act allowed disclosure of information about the actual people who own or control companies which they used to shield, Lee informed.
Treasury is also working to enhance transparency of the US real estate market, Lee said adding that due to Lack of transparency into certain parts of the real estate market approximately $2.3 billion has been laundered through the US real estate market over the previous five years.
Redarding cryptocurrencies and their role in illicit financial flows, Lee said that the countries should ensure effective implementation of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) requirements for virtual assets.
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