Building up a convenient accountability: How the ‘anti-corruption’ law in Brazil was put into force

Abstract

This paper focuses on how Brazil designed and put into force a legal instrument that makes companies strictly liable for domestic and international acts of corruption and highlights the role of external drivers during a 15-year process. It also introduces the concept of ‘convenient accountability’ which suggests that Brazil has adopted the slowest and cheaper methods in order to see to demands of those who want and do not want greater accountability in the case of the new clean company act (Law 12846/2013); also dubbed as ‘anti-corruption law’. Despite the apparent force of the civil society in this case of ‘pressure from below’, until now, no company has been punished under Law 12846/2013. An already over-whelmed anti-corruption agency was chosen to enforce the new legislation in the federal and international spheres against companies, some of them being traditional campaign financers and governmental contractors. Hence, it still remains uncertain whether Brazil will effectively enforce its anti-corruption law that, on paper, even exceeds international requirements.