Working for a large American company in China, our company takes FCPA (and anti-corruption in general) very very seriously. We also emphasize non-retaliation in reporting compliance issues.

The funny thing about the FCPA is it doesn't apply in the foreign -> USA or USA -> USA interactions, only with USA -> foreign interactions as far as I can tell. Foreign and american organizations can do actions that would be illegal in the FCPA itself with the american government. It's pretty funny.

Like a Canadian oil organization can pay huge speaking fees to an American politician and then start getting favorable treatment in the USA. But if an American oil organization started paying huge speaking fees to a Canadian politician and then start getting favorable treatment in Canada, they would probably have a winnable FCPA liability against them.

Either that or the american politician makes sure the law doesn't get enforced in that case.

Considering where US companies operate especially in the Energy sector they probably found a 1000 different ways to "legally" pay bribes without violating the FCP or any other similar legislation.

Not really, you'll get caught eventually, especially in the energy sector; e.g. Triton Energy. It is an incredibly effective piece of legislation, Jimmy Carter and company really gave us something that would benefit the world (you can't just say "this is how they do it here so this is what I do").

It might be benefiting the world in a way already - those who want western businesses in their area may decide to not require them to bribe so hard.

Or you know, if you want western capital, clean up your government.

They can also make it official law. It's not illegal under the FCPA to pay official rush fees, just the unofficial ones.

So in corrupt government X, you make a special western investment tax. The funds of that tax goes to a special fund used for development projects. Those development projects have to go through a convoluted procurement process, which co-incidentally only gets approved with a few politician's organizations. Those organizations then go on those make-work projects, and siphon off a lot of funds and never get them done. The make work projects also help them get re-elected because they create 'jobs'.