Welcome back to the podcast, bribes, swindled, or steel. I'm Alexandra Ragi. Today we'll hear from Nicola Banucci. He's currently the director for legal affairs at the OECD in Paris, but only for a short time longer. He's about to transition to private practice, so we invited him to speak to

trace member companies before his departure to get his thoughts on the global impact of the OECD

Anti-Bribery Convention and its successes and failures. Here's Nicola. Hello, my presentation

will be basically turning around the 20 years of the Anti-Brabri Convention. It's a success and I don't

know if we should use the term failures, but let's say, and scope for improvement. The convention

entering to 4 February in 1999, barely 14 months after he's signing 17 December 1997. A lot has been

written and said about the convention,

and I would describe the position of the community around the convention in three periods.

There was the period of initial skepticism.

There was then a period of maybe excessive enthusiasm,

in which maybe terms like eradication of corruption were used.

And today we're in a period of, if I can use a bit, not-term in which maybe terms like eradication of corruption were used.

And today we're in a period of, if I can use a bit, not skepticism, but a more realistic approach.

But also a period in which I can hear a little music, which basically is around, but 20 years later, nothing has really changed. Ten years after Siemens, we have a case like Oberdresh, and there is another little music which I hear

in a lot in France, in particular, which is the Trojan horse of the United States. So my

presentation will be around three ideas. Where are we coming from? Where are we today and where

we could or should go tomorrow? Where are we coming from? And it's very important to realize

where are we coming from. Carl Sagan once said, you have to know the past to understand the

present. So let's go back quickly to the past.

The past was that until 1999 and until basically the mid-90s, it was not a crime to bribe

a foreign public official.

And if you look at this as the benchmark, I think we have accomplished an incredible amount of road.

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