US anti-fraud watchdogs such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Department of Justice are expected to bring an increasing number of cases as well as seek harsher penalties as companies which violate the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, according to a global accounting firm.

Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers made the forecast on July 27 as it released a report examining the efforts by US authorities to crack down on companies paying bribes to foreign officials. The firm said regulators are likely to devote more resources to their anti-corruption efforts.

This was likely particularly considering there was an estimated backlog of 120 FCPA cases as of last year, and also because the Obama Administration was focusing on an accountability drive in response to the financial crisis.

The report, entitled “Corruption crackdown: How the FCPA is changing the way the world does business”, found while increasing numbers of executives understood the need to strong anti-corruption measures in organizations, many were still skeptical of how useful they were in preventing wrong-doing from taking place.

It surveyed 390 senior executives around the world, and it found that 80 per cent of respondents had an anti-corruption program in place. However, only 22 per cent said they were confident that they were useful.

It also predicted that compliance with FCPA will become a top corporate governance issue. “Bribery wasn’t really a board level priority until fairly recently. It was just one of a basket of risks, and with rare exceptions – usually some crisis – it rarely took valuable board time and resources. The magnitude of recent impacts in Europe and the US has changed this, making corruption a top-level issue,” said Michael Fine, director of private sector initiatives at Transparency International USA.

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Britain's embattled Serious Fraud Office is ready to unveil its new colors, following a painful revamp in the last few months that has consisted of the systematic purge of veteran managers and senior prosecutors, according to its director Richard Alderman.

Speaking to UK's Guardian newspaper, the SFO’s chief said it was poised to reveal details of two cases it has been working on behind closed doors for the last few months. When announced, he expects it will dispel criticism that the reformed SFO lacks the stomach to take on complex white collar crime.

The SFO face criticism last year when it abandoned its inquiry into bribery allegations between Saudi Arabia and defense contractor BAE Systems, after coming under pressure from the British government. A subsequent review by former New York prosecutor Jessica de Grazia also found that the agency was "demoralized and under-performing".

"By the end of August, we are going to make some announcements that will make people sit up and say , 'Wow, this is what the SFO can do'," he said, adding that there was no fraud that was too complicated for the retooled fraud-buster.

According to the report, Mr Alderman has, since taking office last April, overseen the departure of much of its experienced staff, the abandonment of a number of difficult cases, as well as put into place a new organizational structure which includes a new department to raise awareness about fraud.

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