An Empirical Analysis Of The World Bank's Anti-corruption Sanctions Involving My Countr

Over the past decades,the World Bank has developed a system of sanctions against companies and individuals involved in the implementation of its financed loan programs,with“suspension of participation" as the main sanction tool with a two-tier sanctioning process,the Office of Suspension and Debarment and the Sanctions Board as the review structure.Many large infrastructure enterprises in China also attend the Bank-financed projects,but they are often included in the Bank’s sanctions list due to their own sanctionable acts in the procurement and subsequent contract execution,and lose these opportunities to attend the Bank-financed projects during the sanctions period,which has a great impact on the expansion of China’s infrastructure enterprises in overseas markets and the realization of going global strategy and“Consultation,Contribution and Shared Benefits".This paper will firstly analyze the system design and operation of the Bank’s anticorruption sanctions,and then analyze the logic of its basic sanction“debarment" in the light of the characteristics of the infrastructure industry,so as to provide the institutional basis for further discussion on the sanctioned cases of Chinese enterprises and individuals.The focus of this paper is on the problems and characteristics of the cases involving China in the context of the decisions of the Bank’s Sanctions Board.The author screens the information of the cases involving China from the sanctioned firms and individual list published by the Bank in 2021,based on the two main research perspectives of the substantive provisions of sanctions and the selection of response procedures,selects the statistical themes of the growth of each year,the statistics of each type of sanction grounds,and the institutions sanctioned pursuant to,and draws the graphs of each statistical indicator for China’s enterprises and individuals.It is found that the cases involving China present three characteristics and problems:firstly,most sanctioned enterprises and individuals commit fraud and corruption;secondly,the negative spillover effect of the sanctions measures has a large scope of impact,as the Bank’s sanctions regime has provisions for cross debarment and liability of affiliated enterprises by various international development banks,a sanctionable act will trigger the sanctions practice of controlled affiliate of a sanctioned entity and multiple international development banks;thirdly,most of the cases evade defense communication leads to inadequate understanding of the legal application of the conduct elements.This paper focuses on the first issue,which is to deconstruct the most commonly committed elements of fraud and corruption through the decision and comparative study of sanctions cases published by the Bank.And only by clarifying their application can fundamentally guide the compliance practices of China’s enterprises and individuals,which provides a solid foundation for the latter two issues.This paper focuses on fraud,which is the most common type of sanctionable acts in the Bank’s overall statistics and in China’s case statistics.By extracting the descriptions of fraud in the Bank’s Anti-Corruption Guidelines and Procurement Guidelines,the author deconstructs the key elements of fraud:whether there is misrepresentation,how to determine the intent of fraud,analyze the purpose of the act,and the principle of employer’s responsibility of the respondent company.After comparing the traditional theory of misrepresentation in Common Law and Civil Law with the elements of the Bank’s determination,discussing whether the "materiality"standard should be added to the Bank’s determination process,and analyzing the legal nature of the disclosure obligation to the other party in the procurement of the Bank’s loan projects,the author analyzes the two China’s cases appealed to the Sanctions Board and other typical cases with specific facts,especially the cases of misrepresentation and borrowing of qualifications,does research on the identification of omission information to be disclosed,and focus on the standard of reasonable care to determine whether there is "recklessly" in fraud cases.Later on,this paper discusses the elements of another common type corruption under the Bank’s sanctions regime.Therefore,in this chapter,the author divides the objective behavioral elements into "promising and giving bribes" and "accepting and soliciting bribes",and identifies the differences in the composition within the two acts,analyzes the results of the determination of the act brought by the initiative and passivity of the behavior,then analyzes the criteria for inferring the intent of corruption,focuses on the close connection between the act and the results of the implementation of influence,and finally,the determination of the financial benefits of corruption combined with the case is illustrated,and the comparison of the elements of corrupt behavior composition in China and other legislative practices is combined to propose the identification of additional specific elementsAfter completing the analysis of the elements of fraud and corruption,the main points of the Bank’s sanctions regime on fraud and corruption are clarified,and the parts of the relevant regime in China that may have gaps in the interface with the current international rules are analyzed.Starting from two directions of "bid cheating"and"corruption" in the context of China’s bidding and procurement legislation,the author discusses the clarification of the elements of "bid cheating" in the Bidding Law and the Government Procurement Law of China,and the inclusion of the regulation of "offer"in China’s corruption crimes.In addition,the article will consider the irrationality of criminalization of "bid cheating" as "contract fraud" and extend the scope from the applicability of "bribery of foreign public officials" to the common subject of bribery.Finally,the article will also attempt to optimize the debarment measures of "bid cheating" and "corruption" in China’s legislation with the direction of the above specific legislative convergence with international standards.