Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is a United States federal law enacted by the 95th Congress and signed by President Jimmy Carter on December 19, 1977, following a series of bribery scandals in the mid 1970s that implicated major American corporations. It makes it a crime for United States citizens, residents and companies, and certain foreign companies, to bribe foreign government officials in order to obtain or retain business, and it was the first American law to make foreign bribery of this kind a federal offense. The act also requires companies whose securities are listed in the United States to keep accurate books and records and to maintain a system of internal accounting controls, provisions intended to make concealed bribery harder to carry out and easier to detect. It has since become a model referenced in later international anti-bribery agreements.