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In The Words Of The DOJ …

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Recently the Department of Justice Fraud Section released its 2021 Year in Review.

Set forth below are the FCPA relevant portions.

The Fraud Section has three “litigating units” including the FCPA Unit described as follows:

“The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Unit has primary jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute violations of the FCPA and works in parallel with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has civil enforcement authority for violations of the FCPA by publicly traded companies. The FCPA Unit has brought criminal enforcement actions against individuals and companies and has focused its enforcement efforts on both the supply side and demand side of corrupt transactions. The FCPA Unit also plays a leading role in developing policy as it relates to the FCPA, and training and assisting foreign governments in the global fight against corruption.”

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This Is Why FCPA Inc. Needs A Common Language

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For years, these pages have highlighted the need for a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act common language as to the basic question of “what is an FCPA enforcement action?” (See herehereherehere, here).

This article titled “A Common Language to Remedy Distorted FCPA Enforcement Statistics” exposes in detailed fashion various distorted FCPA enforcement statistics. As highlighted in the article, the absence of a FCPA common language has numerous negative effects including infecting nearly all FCPA enforcement statistics.

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An FCPA Statistical Feast

Kid in Candy Store

If the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is an area of your practice or interest, this post may make you feel like a kid in a candy store.

FCPA Professor has been the place to visit this month for in-depth 2021 FCPA enforcement statistics as well as comparisons to historical statistics. If you missed the daily posts, no worries. This post consolidates in one place the statistics recently published on FCPA Professor.

Compared to prior years, certain of the 2021 year in review statistics are less than enlightening given the small number of corporate enforcement actions in 2021.

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DOJ Individual Actions: The Strange Public – Private Divide

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These pages track all sorts of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act statistics.

Some of the statistics are “inside baseball” like and other statistics (such as the long time periods associated with FCPA scrutiny or the general lack of individual enforcement actions in connection with most corporate enforcement actions) raise significant public policy issues and/or undermine government rhetoric.

The statistic discussed in this post fits all three categories: it is equal parts “inside baseball,” it raises significant public policy issues, it undermines government rhetoric, and moreover it is just plain strange.

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A Focus On DOJ Individual Actions

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This recent post focused on SEC individual FCPA actions in 2021 and historically. Today’s post highlights various facts and figures regarding the DOJ’s prosecution of individuals for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act offenses in 2021 and historically.

The key word above is FCPA offenses.

Some in the FCPA space include enforcement actions containing non-FCPA charges (often money laundering charges against alleged “foreign officials” or with increasing frequency money laundering charges against alleged bribe payors – see here) related to an FCPA enforcement action as an individual FCPA enforcement action. While it is fine to track such enforcement actions, calling them FCPA enforcement actions is factually false.

Compared to corporate FCPA enforcement actions, tracking individual FCPA enforcement actions can be difficult because the DOJ does not publicly announce every individual enforcement action and/or certain matters are filed under seal. Moreover, and as relevant to this year’s statistics, the DOJ may originally file non-FCPA charges against certain individuals (complete with a press release announcing the action) but then subsequently file FCPA charges against the same individuals (without an announcing press release).

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