Professor Joanna Harrington recently presented on Canada's legislative scheme for prosecuting the bribery of foreign public officials at the "Transnational Criminal Law in the Americas" conference hosted by the Faculty of Law at the University of Windsor, 4-5 May 2017.
Noting criticisms from the OECD and the NGO community regarding the few prosecutions in Canada of the payment of bribes to secure business advantages abroad, her presentation also drew attention to the challenges posed by the law of immunities, as well as the need for a greater focus on asset recovery. She also explained how plea agreements have raised additional concerns about the full accounting for a wrong, with suggestions that corruption is a victimless crime downplaying the wider societal impacts of the misuse of public resources.
Hosted by the University of Windsor Faculty of Law, the conference examined a wide variety of transnational legal issues, with the Windsor-Detroit border providing an appropriate backdrop for discussions concerning serious cross-border crime.