The world's leading lawyers have questioned the ability of the Australian Federal Police to investigate serious corporate crime and called for a new "dedicated agency" to have responsibility for complex financial cases, including foreign bribery.

In a damning submission to the Senate, the International Bar Association (IBA) described Australia's foreign bribery laws as ineffective and our record of enforcement "woeful".

"We have had 15 years of foreign bribery laws in Australia," wrote Robert Wyld, author of the submission.

He said in that time there had been 28 investigations, although 21 of those were dropped and only two were criminal prosecutions.

"The system is not working. Unless people go to jail, unless people see imprisonment as the real ultimate penalty, there will be no behavioural change," Mr Wyld said.

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While acknowledging the 2014 improvements of the AFP's Fraud and Anti-Corruption Centre, Mr Wyld, who is co-chair of the IBA's Anti-Corruption Committee, described Australia as a "reactive country, sensitive to external criticism and forced to budget better resources only when it must".

The Australian Wheat Board became embroiled in a kickback scandal more than 10 years ago which saw $300 million funnelled through to the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The Federal Government spent $23.4 million investigating the scandal, which resulted in no criminal prosecutions.

By way of contrast in the United States, BHP paid $US25 million to settle bribery charges for offering junkets to the 2008 Beijing Olympics for 176 officials that, it was alleged, could help them.

The AFP launched an investigation in 2013 but Mr Wyld said it went nowhere.

"BHP has not been prosecuted for that conduct in Australia," he said.

Unlike the US, Australia has no liability on parent companies for the conduct of subsidiaries or intermediaries.

"If you want your company to pay bribes, just set up a subsidiary and ensure whatever structure you use is isolated, in terms of effective management from the parent company," Mr Wyld said.

The 2015 Deloitte Bribery and Corruption Survey found 23 per cent of Australian organisations with offshore operations are not concerned about the risks arising from non-compliance with bribery laws.

About 77 per cent have also never conducted a bribery risk assessment.

Experts call for banning of facilitation payments

The IBA wants to see civil and criminal penalties for corruption and foreign bribery increased and the banning of so-called facilitation payments — small amounts of cash handed to officials to get things done which are presently legal under Australian foreign bribery law.

"They are bribes. They are small amounts but they are still bribes," said Transparency International's executive director Mike Ahrens.

Mr Ahrens is campaigning to rid facilitation payments as a defence under our foreign bribery laws — a position the UK government has adopted and one which is supported by the massive miner Woodside.

But there are some that insist facilitation payments are not bribes but a necessary part of doing business in some countries.

"If facilitation payments were banned, it would make it much more difficult to operate in Africa", said the Australia-Africa Mining Industry Group's Bill Turner.

"A policeman will pull you up at a roadblock, you wind the window down and he will poke an AK-47 through the window.

"It is a little bit difficult to argue the case about not being able to make a facilitation payment under such circumstances."

World Bank estimated corruption cost $US1 trillion annually

Mr Wyld said that such payments are nothing more than "grease payments".

"That is not a facilitation payment, that is a worker who is being extorted," he said.

"That would be a justifiable and reasonable thing to do and the person would have the defence of making a payment under duress."

But otherwise, Mr Wyld said facilitation payments were nothing more than "small bribes".

"How can you be half-pregnant? You don't half pay a bribe," he said.

"[The banning of these payments in the UK] has not put United Kingdom companies out of business, they are still operating in the markets where Bill's clients work," he added.

The World Bank estimated in 2005 that corruption cost $US1 trillion annually.

With figures like that, the OECD's CleanGovBiz report argued: "It is not only a question of ethics; we simply cannot afford such waste."

The Senate Economics Reference Committee's inquiry into foreign bribery laws is yet to conduct hearings and is due to report its findings on July 1 next year.