T

he United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said Wednesday that a number of US companies proven of violating the country’s foreign bribery law operated in Indonesia.

Gary Johnson from the FBI’s International Cooperation Unit told reporters during the International Conference on Foreign Bribery in Business Transaction on the resort island of Bali on Wednesday that some firms listed in the US and operating in Indonesia had violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of the United States (FCPA).

A number of US companies have been found guilty of bribing Indonesian officials. In 2010, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigated a multi-million dollar bribery case involving Innospec Ltd., a subsidiary of US-based firm Innospec Inc.

Earlier this year, the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged a former chief executive officer at Innospec, Inc., with violating the FCPA by approving bribes to Indonesian and Iraqi officials.

According to the commission, Innospec paid bribes to “Indonesian government officials from at least 2000 to 2005 in order to win contracts worth more than US$48 million from state-owned oil and gas companies in Indonesia”.

In 2005, the KPK studied a report on an alleged bribery case involving Monsanto and officials from the Agriculture Ministry.

It was reported that Monsanto, an agriculture company based in Missouri, the US, had admitted before the US’ Securities and Exchange Commission that it had paid $373,990 in bribes to the ministry’s officials in order to secure a transgenic cotton project in South Sulawesi. The company was also fined $1.5 million by US exchange authorities for bribing 140 Indonesian officials.

Johnson said the FBI was now handling several international cases, though none of them had so far involved Indonesia.

Johnson, along with other foreign law enforcement experts, came to Indonesia as a guest speaker
in the two-day conference that involved 400 participants from 38 countries.

The conference concluded that an international framework and national policy were important in fighting corruption.

Claire Daams, Deputy Federal Attorney from Switzerland, said that she supported Indonesia in combating graft, particularly foreign bribery, which the KPK is seeking power to probe through the revision of the existing anti-corruption law in the country.

“What Indonesia needs is an appropriate legal framework in handling foreign bribery,” Daams said, adding that if there was a problem, the United Nations and the OECD were ready to assist Indonesia.

“Because, by nature, the case of foreign bribery is international; the key is international cooperation.”

Gunther Punh, a judge at the Munich Court of Appeal in Germany, is of the same opinion, saying that pertaining cooperation with other countries was important “to help others who needed information related to bribery cases”.

Johnson agreed that information sharing was a powerful tool for Indonesia, the US and other countries. “I much appreciate the KPK for its cooperation of information sharing.”