CCI Press has announced the launch of “Bribery Beyond Borders: The Story of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” a gripping narrative history of the landmark anti-corruption statute. The book will debut at the 42nd International Conference on the FCPA — hosted by the American Conference Institute (ACI) Dec. 2-4 in Washington, D.C. — the premier forum for the compliance and anti-corruption community.
Written by legal historian Severin Wirz, “Bribery Beyond Borders” arrives at a moment of reckoning for the FCPA, when its purpose is being questioned, its narrative has fractured and its future depends on how reformers frame corruption as a strategic threat.
Wirz, a practicing attorney with more than 15 years of experience helping multinational companies comply with the FCPA and other cross-border anti-corruption laws, spent over a decade investigating the statute’s Cold War origins and its evolving role in global business, democracy and national security. His research involved tracking down key witnesses, gathering archival records and reconstructing the political and corporate forces that shaped the law.
“Shockingly, much of this history has been largely ignored, and what little has been written about it is often wrong,” Wirz said. “So it’s really my own interest in the subject matter and the need to set the record straight that drove me to visit historical archives and speak with former investigative journalists, congressional staffers, SEC commissioners, and enforcement officials — all of whom helped to paint for me a fuller picture of what really happened.”
As the FCPA approaches its 50th anniversary and a new set of challenges, Wirz takes readers back to the decade of the 1970s, into the halls of Congress and behind the closed-door dealings of corporate boardrooms. There, he uncovers the statute’s largely forgotten origins with striking detail.
Today, the statute is in crisis — caught between competing narratives, weaponized rhetoric and a lack of clear reform direction — but that’s not the only reason CCI Press snapped up this manuscript, said CCI Press publisher Sarah Hadden: “It’s honestly a page-turner. Wirz is an FCPA expert, but he’s also a storyteller at heart, and the reader is pulled in from the very first page.”
The narrative centers on the push to hold multinationals accountable, as journalists, regulators and lawmakers confronted systemic efforts to conceal corporate wrongdoing. Set against the backdrop of Cold War geopolitics, it reveals how corruption was once viewed as a national security threat — and how that framing may be due for a revival.
“We’re living through a moment where corruption is once again threatening democracy, both at home and abroad,” Wirz said. “Ultimately, I want readers to understand why the history behind the statute still matters today, both in how we interpret its meaning and how we think about its application around the world.”
“Bribery Beyond Borders” not only revisits the statute’s birth but offers a playbook for how history will inform the next chapter of anti-corruption reform. “Bribery Beyond Borders” is available at Amazon and select bookstores.
