Developed countries have signed an agreement aimed at stampimg out corporate corruption in international contracts. But the Americans are arguing that it doesn't go far enough. With more on this here's Mark Fisher:

The wealthy countries of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development are promising in this accord to turn up the heat on corrupt practices. They'll do it by making it a criminal offence in a company's own country for it to bribe public officials in countries overseas.

The OECD says this could close a legal loophole, which has allowed companies in the past to wriggle out of responsiblity even though their guilt hardly seemed in doubt. But the United States says the agreement isn't tough enough -- it wanted it to also cover bribes to foreign political parties.

This provision was left out of the accord, because some countries including France and Germany said it would pose constitutional problems -- partly because their laws don't specifically ban companies bribing domestic political parties, let alone foreign ones.

Meanwhile it's unclear how far any legislation can end bribery in international contracts -- which the Americans say has affected deals worth tens of billions of dollars in the past three years alone.
 

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