Key Note Presentation: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Foreign Bribery and Corruption but Were Afraid to Ask - WAMR 2015 Vol. 9, No. 3

I have to say that I am not an arbitrator. I am not a specialist in arbitration. I am not counsel in arbitrations. I am not in law enforcement, and I am not even a national regulator.

So, why have I been invited to be the keynote speaker? Complain to Lucinda Low. But perhaps the reason was because I have the privilege to be the General Counsel of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which has been extremely active in this area for the last 20 years.

The topic this morning is a difficult one. If you are an arbitrator it is something that complicates your life for all the reasons Lucinda explained. However, let us not forget that: “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”1 So let us be optimists. Even if there are difficulties, let us look at the opportunities that this area gives arbitrators and international justice.

Let us start from the beginning. Lucinda explained that 20 years ago the landscape was completely different from today. 20 years ago, in 1995, it was very simple. There was no international legal framework on corruption and bribery, period.

There was not one single treaty dealing with corruption and bribery. If we look at transnational bribery, there was no legislation anywhere in the world, except in the U.S. This was only 20 years ago.