Few Argentine companies have anti-foreign bribery measures beyond limited codes of ethics; the OECD wants this to change.

The Organisation for Economic Control and Development, after sending in an inspection team, is gravely concerned about Argentina’s commitment to fight foreign bribery and how little progress that state has made since the last visit. It has failed to introduce corporate liability for foreign bribery, provide nationality jurisdiction to prosecute this crime, and rectify several shortcomings in its foreign bribery offence, despite the OECD asking it to do these things in 2001.

Argentina’s criminal court system is not of the best. Widespread delays in economic crime cases perist. Judicial investigations were opened in several of the ten foreign bribery allegations that have been made against Argentine people and companies so far, but have foundered. In several instances, the authorities did not investigate pro-actively or seek the co-operation of foreign authorities. The judiciary is not 'independent' (of, presumably, the executive) and the country cannot detect and report foreign bribery at all well. There are too many judicial vacancies and surrogate judges. Argentine law enforcement authorities have not reacted promptly to foreign bribery allegations in the media. Inconsistent and convoluted rules hinder and delay the reporting of crime by public officials.

Few Argentine companies have anti-foreign bribery measures beyond limited codes of ethics. Argentina has not passed any laws or regulations to speak of to protect whistle-blowers in both the public and private sectors from discriminatory or disciplinary action. The government is not doing much to raise awareness of the foreign bribery offence.

There has been some progress. A new Criminal Procedure Code has been enacted recently but has not come into force. The country is making some preparations to amend the Penal Code and Income Tax Law, but nobody knows when this will come to pass. The government recently creates some specialised prosecution units and the courts recently decided to set up a group of experts to support corruption cases. The reporting of suspicious money laundering transactions has improved.

All this adds up to a fairly damning indictment of a country that has, in any case, never been noted for its probity and lack of corruption. The evaluation team spent two days in Buenos Aires, during which time it met politicians, judges and pressmen.