corporate crime
FCPA Validation
U.S. corruption enforcement gets
international praise. By SteVen AnderSen
quick read
OECD report affirms
FCPA enforcement
surge
U.S. Chamber wants
more judicial review
Experts predict
more enforcement
It’s safe to say that the intense effort to tackle foreign bribery has been the single most strik-
ing corporate criminal enforcement trend over the past several years. The numbers from the
Justice Department’s fraud section, which prosecutes Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)
cases, tell an unmistakable story. ¶ In 2004, the Department of Justice (DOJ) booked just two
FCPA cases, netting a total of $11.3 million in criminal penalties. It’s been a steep climb ever
since. ¶ “In ’05, which was considered the banner year at that time, the FCPA folks prosecuted
five individuals and collected something
like $16 million,” says Markus Funk, a
partner at Perkins Coie. “And then you
contrast that with 2010, where if you look
at the top eight cases alone, they collected
more than $1.5 billion—that’s with a B.”
Such dramatic increases are often
met with criticism, particularly when
they cross international borders, but
this is one area where the world seems
to be squarely behind the hard-
line U. S. stance. In October 2010,
the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development
(OECD) issued a glowing
assessment on the state of U.S.
anti-corruption enforcement.
ment efforts is a reflection of a positive
trend toward legal reform overseas.”
World Leader
With 33 member states, including most
of Europe, all of North America, Japan,
Korea, Australia and New Zealand, the
OECD represents a large portion of the
industrialized world. That’s a meaningful
consensus falling in behind U.S. corrup-
tion policy.
photography by thinkstock
