Luxembourg: Phase 2
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DIRECTORATE FOR FINANCIAL AND ENTERPRISE AFFAIRS LUXEMBOURG: PHASE 2 REPORT ON THE APPLICATION OF THE CONVENTION ON COMBATING BRIBERY OF FOREIGN PUBLIC OFFICIALS IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS AND THE 1997 RECOMMENDATION ON COMBATING BRIBERY IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS This report was approved and adopted by the Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions (CIME) on 28 May 2004. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................................... 4 a) Luxembourg as a business and financial centre.......................................................................... 4 b) The exposure of the Grand Duchy to bribery ............................................................................. 5 c) Methodology and structure of the report..................................................................................... 6 A. PREVENTING AND DETECTING ACTS OF BRIBERY OF FOREIGN PUBLIC OFFICIALS .............................................................................................. 6 1. Preventing the bribery of foreign public officials ............................................................................ 6 a) Government efforts to create awareness among the general public, and businesses and professionals in particular, about the new offence of bribery...................... 6 b) Private self-regulation................................................................................................................. 7 2. Detecting acts of bribery of foreign public officials, and related offences ...................................... 8 a) Detection based on third-party disclosures ................................................................................. 8 i) Revelation by persons implicated in bribery, employees and the media ................................ 8 ii) Detection and reporting by accountants and auditors ........................................................... 10 b) Bribery detection by government departments and other agencies .......................................... 11 i) Disclosure by government departments................................................................................ 11 ii) Detection and disclosure by the tax authorities .................................................................... 12 iii) Detection and disclosure by agencies responsible for controlling bribery in export credits and bilateral aid.......................................................................................... 15 c) Discovery of bribery by the police and judicial bodies............................................................. 17 i) Detection by the police and judicial bodies .......................................................................... 17 ii) Detecting foreign bribes through anti-money laundering mechanisms ................................ 18 iii) Money laundering provisions in practice.............................................................................. 19 d) Interagency co-operation and detection of bribery of foreign public officials ......................... 21 B. PROSECUTING BRIBERY OF FOREIGN PUBLIC OFFICIALS AND RELATED OFFENSES........................................................................................................ 22 1. Initiating public action.................................................................................................................... 22 a) The role of the investigating authorities in initiating prosecution ............................................ 22 b) The role of the investigating authorities in criminal proceedings............................................. 23 2. Prosecution of offences .................................................................................................................. 24 a) Staffing and resources of the prosecutors and the investigating magistrates responsible for economic and financial offences...................................................................... 24 2 b) The support structures for the prosecuting authorities and investigating magistrates .............. 26 c) Means of investigation.............................................................................................................. 28 i) General and specialised means ............................................................................................. 28 ii) Obstacles to investigation ..................................................................................................... 29 d) Mutual judicial assistance and Luxembourg’s treatment of international rogatory commissions.......................................................................................... 30 3. Establishing the offence of bribery................................................................................................. 32 a) Elements of the offence ............................................................................................................ 32 i) The “corruption pact” ...........................................................................................................32 ii) The notion of “without right” ............................................................................................... 33 b) Territorial application of Luxembourg criminal law ................................................................ 33 C. SANCTIONING THE OFFENCE OF ACTIVE BRIBERY OF FOREIGN PUBLIC OFFICALS AND RELATED OFFENCES............................................ 34 1. Impunity of legal persons ............................................................................................................... 34 2. Convictions and sentences handed down by the Luxembourg criminal courts for acts of bribery committed by individuals.................................................................................. 36 a) Applicable sanctions and their determination by the judges..................................................... 36 b) Sentences handed down by the courts....................................................................................... 37 3. Sanctions for laundering the proceeds of bribery of foreign public officials ................................. 39 4. Persons found guilty of accounting and fiscal offences ................................................................. 41 a) Prosecution of accounting offences .......................................................................................... 41 b) Enforcement of the non tax deductibility of bribes................................................................... 42 RECOMMENDATIONS .......................................................................................................................... 43 ANNEX 1 List of institutions met during the on-site visit from 17 to 20 November 2003 ............................................................................................ 47 ANNEX 2 Composition of the examining team.................................................................................... 50 3 INTRODUCTION a) Luxembourg as a business and financial centre 1. Following a series of upheavals in the latter half of the 1960s and 1970s, the economic structure of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which had until then being dominated by the steel industry, underwent a considerable transformation, with the rise of the financial sector. Metallurgy, which accounted for nearly 30% of value added in 1970, represented only 2.4% of that value in 1995, and less than 2% by 2001.1 Today, Luxembourg’s economic development is based on a steadily growing financial sector and the emergence of other service industries, in particular services to businesses, computer services, and transport and communications, and a high level of external investment. The gross domestic product per capita of the Grand Duchy is now among the highest in the world, at €48,700. In 2001, the services sector, led by financial services, contributed more than 80% of value added in the Luxembourg economy.2 2. Within the Luxembourg financial sector, it is the interbank market that today plays the key role in the country’s economic dynamism, drawing major capital flows into Luxembourg. Given the narrowness of the domestic market, those flows are in turn invested abroad, for the most part, primarily with other banks. The interbank market consists primarily of European banks (70%) and a few American (5%) and Japanese banks (3%). It is now the fourth largest in Europe, and ranks ninth in the world. The total balances of banks established in the Grand Duchy amounted to nearly €700 billion in 2002, compared to 3 €6 billion in 1970. Finance and insurance companies also play a significant role. The importance of the financial sector in the economic fabric of Luxembourg is reflected in the fact that its share of total value added rose from 4% in 1970 to more than 25% in 2001, when it accounted for nearly 12% of total 4 employment and more than 40% of the country’s fiscal revenues. 3. The banks and the insurance and reinsurance companies are not the only economic and financial players in the Grand Duchy, however. To this circle of dynamic institutions must be added a second, embracing international businesses and locally owned small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs), nearly all of which (95%) export their output. Apart from steel, the exports of these companies and SMEs include machinery and equipment, agri-food products, tyres