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 four 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.

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There are some topics in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act space that are covered ad nauseam. Yearly enforcement statistics come to mind as well as the odd practice of “media” covering law firm client alerts as if they are news.

Then, there are other topics in the FCPA space that receive little coverage. In this later category are FCPA enforcement actions (that is those involving FCPA books and records and internal controls charges) that do not necessarily involve foreign bribery.

These pages have long focused on so-called non-FCPA FCPA enforcement actions because they often present a perplexing issue. That is, the same legal violation is generally enforced in different ways.

It’s as if speeding tickets in the same jurisdiction involving a blue car are handled differently than a speeding ticket involving a red car.

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The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act  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 and these provisions are among the most generic legal provisions one can possibly find.

The latest example is this recent SEC enforcement action against Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. (SNCR) and seven senior employees, including the former CFO, in connection with their roles related to long-running accounting improprieties.

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