Responding to transnational corporate bribery using international frameworks for enforcement: Anti-bribery and corruption in the UK and Germany

Transnational corporate bribery is complexly organized at a multi-jurisdictional level. However, enforcement remains at the local, national level where investigators and prosecutors are pressured to respond using frameworks for enforcement created by intergovernmental organizations. These legal frameworks are incorporated into national laws which result in legal convergence between jurisdictions but the ‘functional equivalence’ approach of intergovernmental organizations enables divergence in enforcement practices. This article analyses two theoretically comparable anti-corruption enforcement systems, those of the UK and Germany, to evidence an understanding of policy responses at the operational level. Irrespective of the enforcement system implemented (centralized or decentralized, use of corporate criminal liability or not, among other dimensions), enforcement faces significant structural, legal, procedural, evidential and financial obstacles, even where the will to enforce the law is high. Consequently, criminal law enforcement is currently implausible.