FCPA Inc. has always been an active group of writers who often use any little nugget of information to market FCPA practices.
So it is with the recent Scoular Company FCPA enforcement action.
Even though it was a “garden variety” enforcement action (a company doing business in a foreign country had a point of contact with a “foreign official” in connection with some regulatory aspect of its business and a bribe was allegedly paid), some are asserting that the enforcement action is evidence of the DOJ’s focus on cartel activity.
Here are the facts.
The conduct at issue in the enforcement occurred 7-13 years ago and there is no mention of cartels in the Scoular criminal information (the DPA has not yet been released).
The Scoluar enforcement action was based on the same core conduct at issue in the previously filed (2025) FCPA enforcement action against Carlos Leopoldo Alvelais. There is no mention of cartels in the criminal information or plea agreement in this action.
As long as government officials have articulated government policy there have been efforts by such officials to “market” such policies as perhaps evidence that they are working.
Thus, yes the DOJ press release in the Scoular action does state:
“unbeknownst to the company or its employees, a portion of the bribes paid in connection with Scoular’s shipments benefited persons associated with the criminal operations of a cartel operating at the U.S.-Mexico border.”
In the DOJ release, Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division stated:
“The Scoular Company used customs brokers as part of a long-running scheme at the Mexican border to pay more than $400,000 in bribes to Mexican officials. A portion of those bribes ultimately benefited people who helped operate a cartel, even though Scoular did not know about it. This resolution shows that bribery and corruption not only undermine fair play and competition for Americans, but also hurt our national security interests in stopping the scourge of dangerous cartel activity.”
U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons for the Western District of Texas stated:
“Nothing crosses into or out of Mexico without the approval and payment to Mexican drug cartels. American businesses that engage in any cross-border trade bear a significant amount of responsibility to do so without benefitting those cartels and without threatening our national security. The bribery scheme in which the Scoular Company engaged demonstrates the dangerous corporate corruption we in the Western District of Texas are committed to fighting on behalf of the American people.”
However, the notion that Alvelais, unbeknownst to Scoular or its employees, seemingly shared a portion of the bribes paid to benefit “persons associated with the criminal operations of a cartel operating at the U.S.-Mexico border” has zero legal relevance to the actual FCPA enforcement action.
It is likely mentioned by the DOJ to “market” an enforcement policy and to put the corporate community on notice. Nothing really new here as the DOJ has previously used specific FCPA enforcement actions to “market” government policy whether it was Morgan Stanley’s so-called declination, the DOJ’s desire to pursue more individuals pursuant to the “Yates Memo” or the DOJ’s desire to incentivize voluntary disclosure.
Some are suggesting that the Scoular enforcement action is the first to mention cartel concepts since release of the Blanche Memo in June 2025.
This is not true.
As highlighted in this prior post, last Fall defense counsel in the Rovirosa matter asserted that the DOJ invented a cartel nexus in that matter as part of a public relations campaign. The asserted issue had no legal relevance to the FCPA charges and ultimately U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Hoyt (S.D. Texas) granted a defense motion to dismiss the criminal indictment and motion for acquittal.
As highlighted in this prior post, the November 2025 FCPA enforcement action against Comcel (in which the company paid approximately $118 million in connection with bribery schemes in Guatemala) stated that the “pervasive bribery scheme to obtain and retain telecommunications business in Guatemala, [was] orchestrated by the Company’s Guatemalan shareholder and then-senior Company personnel and involving the use of narcotrafficking proceeds to fund some of the bribes.”
