1.- ICC was founded by the business community as an advocate of free trade and a promoter of self-regulation. The ICC Uniform Customs and Practices for Documentary Credits (UCP), the INCOTERMS, the International Code of Advertising, the Business Charter for Sustainable Development and the Voluntary Commitment by business to manage business responsibly are not enforceable but are recognized as sources of Law.
Faced with the growing threats of economic crime, ICC took, as from 1977, position against extortion and bribery, and, later on, engaged against counterfeiting and piracy and provided technical support to enterprises confronted with economic crime.
A.- Fighting extortion and bribery.-
2.- Participation by ICC in the establishing of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, which call upon the enterprises to comply with the Law but also with ethics, the stakeholders’ interest, the environment and the local working conditions. The idea of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) becomes prevalent.
3.- The United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 criminalizes bribery of foreign public officials but efforts to create a United Nations convention on illicit payments fail. ICC, playing a pioneering role, drafts a report and Rules and Recommendations on bribery and corruption in international commercial transactions. Creation of a panel which will appear to be ineffective.
4.- Corporate governance comes in the center of debate. OECD produces Corporate Governance Principles, which recommend boards of directors to apply “high ethical values”.
5.- Setting up by OECD of Recommendations and a Convention (1997), based on the technique of «functional equivalence» and criminalizing bribery of foreign public officials as well as disallowing bribes as deductible expenses.
ICC, under this strong new impulse, rewrites its Rules and Recommendations, while reinforcing their content and advising enterprises to establish their own self-discipline rules. ICC Rules condemn all forms of corruption. Publication by ICC of a practical guide for enterprises, called Fighting Corruption, A corporate practices manual. It recommends an iterative compliance policy in seven steps.
6.- The United Nations anti-corruption convention of 2003 (UNCAC) possesses three main characteristics: (i) it aims at being global, (ii) it covers all forms of corruption and (iii) will have, due to its complexity, to be monitored in a thorough way and will require a strong technical support to the participating nations. The follow up of this convention is an important challenge for ICC.
B.- Technical support by ICC to enterprises, confronted with economic crime.-
7.- Creation by ICC of an organization specialized in the fight against economic crime: Commercial Crime Services (CCS), organized in three specialized bureaus: International Maritime Bureau, Financial Investigation Bureau and Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau. CCS helps enterprises to face risks of international trade, in financial transactions and to avoid intellectual property crime (IP crime).
8.- Is there a possible role for CCS in the registration and the anonymous publication of extortion attempts, thereby exposing this form of crime to public reprobation?
C.- Protection of intellectual property.-
9.- IP crime has taken considerable proportions, endangering health and security of consumers, threatening employment and putting into question innovation and creativity. ICC has set up BASCAP or Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy, which unites the efforts of the business community in its fight against IP crime, aims at obtaining a stronger commitment from the authorities and at creating public awareness about the risks resulting from this form of crime.
10.- The BASCAP modus operandi is based on the organization and the animation of an information network in the form of a clearing house, with three gateways (national, per sector, under the form of Brand Protection Directory and as a Who’s who gateway).
11.- BASCAP produces a Global Survey on Counterfeiting and Piracy, containing a rating of countries according to their IP protection efforts and a list of priority areas of activity.
D.- Criticism of ICC action.-
12.- ICC has been criticized as to the relevance of its fight against economic crime. One has asked if ICC’s action is not conducted at the expense of the nations, if it is legitimate and if it is not done under false ethical pretenses.
The author answers that the ICC activity, specially its autoregulative aspect, is not meant to substitute for the action by the nations but rather to encourage it, to initiate it and to precede it, creating the conditions for what is called coregulation. ICC, which was created to work in favor of liberalized markets, is particularly well placed, thanks to its experience of international trade, to formulate pragmatic and realistic solutions to threat of economic crime. The public relations aspects of integrity programmes, which cannot be ignored, should not heal what is really at stake.
E.- The sector-related programmes.-
13.- ICC has until now been active in the multi-sectoral area. A number of sector-related initiatives to fight in favor of corporate integrity have been launched, in which ICC wishes to be present.