Proposal Selected for 2019 AIPN Research Paper Grant
AIPN has chosen a proposal for the 2019 AIPN Research Paper which will examine trends in multi-jurisdictional enforcement of anti-corruption regulations in the international petroleum industry. The paper will be authored by Scott W. Randall (AIPN), PlusAlpha Risk Management Solutions and Francisco Paes Marques, (AIPN) PhD, Universidade de Lisboa. The paper will be completed at the end of April 2020. A full abstract may be viewed below.
AIPN’s annual Research Paper program offers a substantial grant to selected qualified authors for the preparation of practical, thoroughly researched papers on topics directly relevant to international petroleum negotiations. Click here for a list of the previous AIPN Research Papers.
Abstract for the 2019 Research Paper Selection
The risk of prosecution under the US FCPA and Britain’s Bribery Act and other international regulations and statutes continues to be a consideration for companies operating internationally. Although anti-corruption regulations and enforcement are nothing new, the extent of multi-jurisdictional collaboration for the same incident has increased significantly. This poses new commercial and legal implications for companies operating internationally.
The first objective of the research is to investigate and document the incidence of multi-jurisdictional prosecution in the global petroleum industry. The purpose is to determine whether coordinated, multijurisdictional enforcement is a significant new trend, a continuation of existing practice or simply a series of ad hoc occurrences. If it is a significant trend, the paper will characterize the legal nature of the prosecutions and document the direct and indirect commercial impacts of the settlements. Finally, considering data about how companies have responded to prosecution, conclusions will be drawn about petroleum industry good practices in mitigating the risk of multi-jurisdictional prosecution.
This topic is of significant interest to the Petroleum industry and has been validated by an informal survey of commercial and legal AIPN members and other industry experts. The authors will rely on the support of two internationally recognized universities; The University of Lisbon and the Thunderbird School of Global Management as well as Transparency International.
To carry out the research, investigators will perform a global “enforcement” survey to gather 5-7 years of solid, secondary information concerning anti-corruption prosecution. They will then create an MS Access database to document, store, sort and analyze the information. Finally, they will summarize the findings and draw conclusions in accordance with the above study objectives.
The research team has a solid base of petroleum contacts, having spent many years in the industry. However, we recognize the challenge of getting people to agree to talk given the sensitivity of this information. Thus, we will make a good faith effort to perform these interviews and receive permission from the interviewees before attribution.