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Cracking the FCPA Code: Interpreting Recent DOJ and SEC Enforcement and Messaging

By Laurence A. Urgenson, Matthew J. Alexander and Colleen Snow
November 02, 2015

Notwithstanding expectations of a shift in government enforcement priorities, after more than a decade, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement still shows no signs of slowing down. Indeed, the last two years each welcomed two new members to the list of 10 largest corporate enforcement matters: Total and Weatherford in 2013, and Alstom and Alcoa in 2014.

Despite increased corporate focus on anti-corruption generally and the FCPA specifically, the world is slow to change. Business norms in many high-risk jurisdictions and industries around the globe remain largely unaffected by the wave of anti-corruption enforcement. Further, as seen in the unfolding Petrobras scandal in Brazil, prosecutors and regulators outside the United States are now seizing the opportunity to initiate (rather than just participate in) U.S.-style investigations and resolutions. Finally, this vigorous global enforcement environment coincides with a period of high turnover in leadership at the Department of Justice (DOJ), including a new Attorney General (Loretta Lynch), Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division (Leslie Caldwell), Chief of the Fraud Section (Andrew Weissmann), and Deputy Chief of the Fraud Section's FCPA unit (Patrick Stokes), among others. New leaders bring new perspectives, priorities and messages, and ' given the dearth of judicial oversight in FCPA enforcement ' it is critically important to understand what these new FCPA enforcers are saying about the future of FCPA enforcement.

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