President Trump ordered a break on Monday in the application of a federal law aimed at limiting corruption in multinational societies, saying that it creates an unequal playing field for American companies.
The law, the law on foreign corruption practices, makes illegal for companies operating in the United States to pay representatives of the foreign government to obtain trade agreements. Although the law was promulgated in 1977, the federal authorities have more strongly applied it since about 2005, repressing corruption, in particular in the countries where it is a common commercial practice.
Trump opposed the law, which led to accusations and enormous fines against some of the world’s largest companies. In November, American prosecutors accused Gautam Adani, the Indian magnate, of welding Indian officials and accused him of fraud. His business described these claims as “baseless”.
Companies that have paid fines under the law include the Siemens engineering conglomerate and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson. In 2020, Goldman Sachs agreed to pay more than $ 2.9 billion to resolve the accusations that the employees of his Malaysian subsidiary paid $ 1 billion in foreign managers.
The law was “abused in a way that affects the interests of the United States,” Mr. Trump’s decree said on Monday, adding that his application hindered the objectives of foreign policy.
The order prohibits federal authorities from launching new surveys under the law or applying new actions for 180 days. The administration will also examine the existing surveys launched under the law, she said, to “restore the appropriate limits” on the law.
He also orders the Attorney General to issue new directives on how to enforce the law “which promotes American competitiveness and the effective use of federal laws for the application of the law”.
The application of the law has increased in the past two decades when companies have become more and more globalized. In 2004, there were only two criminal application measures under the law. Last year, there were approximately 30 actions of this type of the Ministry of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission.
Trump was among the criticisms that argued that the scope of the law left US companies to a competitive disadvantage abroad. He declared in a CNBC interview in 2012 that “the world makes fun of us” for having applied the law, and in 2017, he appointed Jay Clayton, a lawyer who had expressed skepticism about American antibrières policies, to manage dry
Trump wanted to conclude the law during his first mandate, according to the book “a very stable genius”, by journalists from the Washington Post Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig. They wrote that, during a 2017 briefing, Trump told the Secretary of State at the time, Rex W. Tillerson, that the law was “so unfair” for American companies.
Trump also told a political advisor to write an executive action to repeal the law, they wrote. But the advisor, Stephen Miller, replied that he was skeptical about this plan, and that ultimately did not materialize.
