The Foreign Extortion Prevention Act states that:
“not later than 1 year after the date of enactment … and annually thereafter, the Attorney General in consultation with the Secretary of State as relevant, shall submit to the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, and post on the publicly available website of the Department of Justice, a report:
“(A) focusing, in part, on demands by foreign officials for bribes from entities domiciled or incorporated in the United States, and the efforts to foreign governments to prosecute such cases; (B) addressing United States diplomatic efforts to protect entities domiciled or incorporated in the United States from foreign bribery, and the effectiveness of those efforts in protecting such entities; (C) summarizing major actions taken under this section in the previous year, including enforcement actions taken and penalties imposed; (D) evaluating the effectiveness of the Department of Justice in enforcing this section; and (E) detailing what resources or legislative action the Department of Justice needs to ensure adequate enforcement of this section.”
Recently, duplicate letters (to various members of Congress) were put on the DOJ’s website. (See here).
In pertinent part, the letter (signed by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ronald Lampard) states:
Since the law’s enactment in July 2024, the Fraud Section has taken several steps to integrate FEPA into its enforcement approach and investigative framework. In addition to providing trainings to its prosecutors and law enforcement partners on the scope and elements of the new law, Fraud Section prosecutors and their law enforcement partners are pursuing non-public investigations into potential violations of FEPA, including instances in which foreign officials appear to have solicited and demanded bribes from U.S. companies and individuals. Moreover, as part of other ongoing FCPA investigations authorized to proceed in light of the President’s February 10, 2025, Executive Order and the Deputy Attorney General’s June 9, 2025, Guidelines, prosecutors and investigators are pursuing potential FEPA angles.
In addition, Department prosecutors have engaged with foreign law enforcement partners to educate them on the FEPA law. Separately, the Department of State provided general information about FEPA to diplomatic missions, which included a description of FEPA and how
to report potential violations, and it incorporates FEPA (alongside the FCPA) into anticorruption training provided to embassy officers who support U.S. companies doing business overseas. Finally, the Criminal Division’s website provides an email address— FCPA.Fraud@usdoj.gov for reports of potential FEPA violations.While FEPA has become an important element of the Fraud Section’s investigative focus, in the year since the enactment of FEPA, the Department has not announced prosecutions under FEPA. That is due primarily to the nature of these complex investigations, which are time
intensive and require extensive investigation before cases are ready for prosecution. Importantly, FEPA’s provisions are not retroactive. Therefore, conduct punishable under FEPA must have occurred since its adoption. Nonetheless, the fact that the Fraud Section is investigating potential FEPA violations in several matters demonstrates the Department’s commitment to enforcing this law and shows promise that the law will yield fruitful prosecutions in the future.”
