As touched upon in this prior post, during the Trump administration certain FCPA commentators appeared to become unhinged and were saying some ridiculous things (see here – “the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is likely to be substantially weakened, perhaps even repealed” and “the era of vigorous FCPA enforcement … is over.”).

Once it become clear that FCPA enforcement remained robust during the Trump administration – and indeed was above recent historical averages in terms of both corporate and individual enforcement as well as set records in terms of overall yearly FCPA settlement amounts, – some commentators shifted gears and suggested that none of this really mattered because certain FCPA enforcement actions were initiated, and in the so-called pipeline, prior to the Trump administration.

Given that corporate FCPA scrutiny tends to last approximately four years on average (see here), such statements were partially and technically true. However, I don’t recall commentators ever discounting FCPA enforcement actions during the first Obama administration even though many of them initiated during the Bush administration nor do I recall commentators ever discounting FCPA enforcement actions during the first Bush administration even though many of them initiated during the Clinton administration.

Continue Reading