In Luxembourg, there is a lot of talk about compliance. There is little talk about corruption.

Yet few financial centres in Europe are as exposed as ours. Holding companies of global groups, commodities traders, oil firms, and European multinationals in direct competition with their American counterparts: the Grand Duchy handles financial flows amounting to several hundred million euros in high-risk sectors.

Meanwhile, the country remains one of the few major European financial centres without a national anti-corruption framework comparable to the Sapin 2 Act or the UK Bribery Act.

Maximum offshore exposure

The absence of a national framework offers no protection whatsoever. Luxembourgish companies fall within the scope of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on a daily basis, which applies on the basis of a criterion that has become almost elusive: the ‘US nexus’. A dollar passing through New York, a Gmail email, a WhatsApp message, a US national in a middle management role: all these points of contact can justify the DOJ opening an investigation.

The examples are well known: Alstom paid $772 million in 2014, Société Générale $585 million in 2018, Airbus $3.9 billion in 2020, and Glencore over $1 billion in 2022. None of them could have imagined, seven years earlier, that they would end up in Washington’s crosshairs.

In Luxembourg, the risk is structurally higher: many of our multinationals operate in sectors dominated by US competitors. And the figures speak for themselves: between 2014 and 2024, 71% of FCPA penalties were imposed on foreign companies, amounting to $18.4 billion. Penalties imposed on non-US companies are on average 42% higher than those imposed on US companies.

A regulatory imbalance that needs to be addressed

Sapin 2 requires French companies to implement an eight-pillar prevention programme, overseen by the AFA. The UK Bribery Act imposes automatic liability on British companies in the event of a failure to implement preventive measures. Luxembourg has neither a mandatory framework, nor a dedicated agency, nor established case law.

And make no mistake: the new European Directive won’t change a thing. There’s no obligation; it’s simply a ‘mitigating factor’ if you have a prevention system in place.

Understanding, before being tested

Understanding the FCPA is no longer an option; it is essential for business continuity. That is why we are organising the first Luxembourg Forum on Corruption Prevention on 15 October 2026: 280 participants, including leading global figures such as Michel Sapin, Charles Duchaine and Bruno Dalles, as well as representatives from the FATF, Transparency International, the OECD, INTERPOL and the European Commission…

In addition, FLPC Voices, a series of free webinars. The first session takes place on 28 May with Daniel Kahn, former head of the DOJ’s FCPA Unit, whom the Wall Street Journal describes as ‘the DOJ’s most recognisable expert on the FCPA’. Spend an hour with the man behind some of the biggest cases to understand how Washington chooses its targets – and how to avoid becoming the next one.

Register here: www.flpc.lu