FCPA Pros & Cons; Who Is It Really Protecting?

Politics. Pure and simple.

I once worked for a DJIA multi-national retailer headquartered in NY. They had global operations. They operated in many third world countries and engaged in what we would consider corrupt practices to do so. Up to and including providing armies of civil unrest with token pieces of equipment in a quid pro quo "agreement" where the guerillas did not attack the plants of the corporation in that country.

i.e. when a plant needed three new trucks, the company would procure four and leave one outside the plant gate for the insurgents to conscript at night.

They were pretty open about this too. Their stance was that they were a true, multi-national organization and beholden to no government. They were just following the rules - or lack thereof - of the country they were operating in. They saw it as the U.S. rules couldn't be applied to their Columbian or Kenyan operations for instance.

This is not new behavior by the way.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/gm.html