All is fair in love and war: corruption in arms exports and defence procurement.

• In Event: EUROC 2: State-Corporate Crime

Abstract

Corruption has been long associated with the global arms trade. This presentation will explore how corruption appears within the arms trade specifically as a form of bribery. We will move on to discuss the arms trade-specific vulnerabilities that make it comparatively permeable to bribery-related practices. To do so, the focus will be on examining the implications of the (arguably legitimate) secret and classified nature of arms trade deals generally, and their expansive scope and technical complexity, as the two key corruption enablers within defence procurement.
Lastly, the contemporary trends on corruption in arms exports that arose in the post-FCPA and Bribery Act 2010 environment will also be discussed. Specifically, we will highlight the role of trade offsets and their exceptional nature in defence procurement. While arguably defence trade offsets can often serve legitimate sovereign interests for importing states in the context of defence procurement, they can also be employed as a vehicle to facilitate corruption and secure bribes in those same deals. We will conclude by highlighting how problematic trade offsets can be in a context where traditional corruption and bribery were arguably starting to be successfully prosecuted (albeit with some high profile exceptions in the UK) by the relevant domestic authorities by adding further opacity to defence contracts, and making eventual prosecutions even more technically challenging.

Author

• Borja Álvarez, The University of Manchester