In a newly published article, U.S. attorneys Virginia Chavez Romano, Tami Stark and French law clerk Sandra Redivo analyse recent U.S. law enforcement by the U.S. Department of Justice (hereinafter “DOJ”). According to the authors, such enforcement has increasingly relied upon alternatives to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (hereinafter “FCPA”) to police global corruption. This would include criminal offences that occur primarily outside the United States and that may be even out of scope of the FCPA.

In their analysis, the authors come to the conclusion that in recent criminal prosecutions the DOJ continues to be committed to fighting foreign corruption around the world, but that it would not be limited to the FCPA in its pursuit of this conduct. Instead, the DOJ would make use of other laws to target foreign corruption based on conduct that takes place outside the USA. Furthermore, the DOJ would have grounded any requisite U.S. nexus on money transfers made in connection with such conduct according to the authors. In addition, courts would have thus far upheld the DOJ’s efforts in this regard.

The authors conclude from their analysis that remittances with a broad nexus to the United States – including transfers to, from or through the United States – would be all that the DOJ would need in order to establish its own jurisdiction. By doing so, the DOJ would limit the preconditions establishing its own jurisdiction. The DOJ thus would be able to prosecute foreign corruption that takes place between non-US persons in the most remote parts of the world.

 Find the article here: https://www.whitecase.com/sites/default/files/2020-10/doj-global-corruption-efforts-beyond-fcpa.pdf