The new Brazilian anti-corruption act: controversial aspects and penalty mechanisms of private entities

Abstract

This article discusses the latest standard of combating corruption in Brazil, Law 12,846, 2013 - which came to be called "Law Business Anti-Corruption". In an innovative way, the provision in question internalized in national legal system a set of anti-corruption measures, preventive and repressive, due to legal entities. The article aims to describe its main points of interest as well as analyze the inherents problems the lack of regulation of the administrative process, the absence of criteria for applying the sanctions, as well as mitigating circumstances and the nature of strict liability. In the face of such questioning, the paper aims to conduct a study on the issue of decentralization of the conduct of administrative proceedings. Finally, discusses the regulation of compliance programs. Thereby, we propose as an alternative to centralized management of administrative processes, with the assumption of jurisdiction by the courts of auditors of entities of the Federation, and the development of specific law that would, expressly, the compliance in the enterprise, establishing parameters detailed than the laws that generally deal on compliance, in order to make viable the orientation of conduct and behavior of corporations interested in contracting with the government, and help to fight against corruption.