Information Availability and Security and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Cases

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act deals with businesses found guilty of bribing foreign officials. The increasing number of cases and high financial penalties present a growing concern for businesses operating or planning to start operating abroad. The ratings of Transparency International offer an indicator of corruption in countries; however, the analysis shows that this indicator is not correlated with the occurrence of FCPA cases in a particular country. This article shows that the level of availability of information is more important in predicting and potentially preventing the need for FCPA investigations whilst the level of information security is correlated with the perception of corruption and not directly linked to the number of FCPA cases. Using the data of cases filed in 2016-2017, the article discusses how the factors of information availability and security influence the likelihood of an FCPA investigation in a country. The article contributes to empirical studies on corruption by focusing on fact-based data on corruption as opposed to perception-based data and shows that these two sets of data do not correlate. Significant correlations between various measures of information availability in countries with the differing level of human development suggest that both companies and societies can leverage from the availability of information to use different informational practices and policies strategically to combat bribery.