Thus far this year, the SEC has brought three Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions involving alleged foreign bribery.
In the last approximate two months, the SEC has brought at least three FCPA enforcement actions not involving foreign bribery.
Confused? Don’t be. The FCPA has always been a law much broader than its name suggests. Sure, the FCPA contains anti-bribery provisions which concern foreign bribery. Sure, the FCPA’s books and records and internal controls provisions can be implicated in foreign bribery schemes.
However, the fact remains that most FCPA enforcement actions (that is enforcement actions that charge or find violations of the FCPA’s books and records and internal controls provisions) have nothing to do with foreign bribery. For lack of a better term, the name non-FCPA, FCPA enforcement actions has long been used on this site.
The latest example is this recent SEC enforcement action against Eagle Bancorp, Inc.