In Law360, Litigation Team Examines Foreign Extortion Prevention Act

On Dec. 14, Congress passed the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA) to criminally prosecute foreign officials who seek or receive bribes from U.S. persons or businesses. If enacted, FEPA will significantly expand the U.S. government's ability to prosecute foreign officials involved in bribery schemes. 

Litigation & enforcement partner Ryan Rohlfsen, associate Yana Grishkan, and Jason Linder, a partner at Mayer Brown, co-authored an article for Law360 analyzing how the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act fills the gap in foreign corruption enforcement.

“The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act criminalizes offering bribes to foreign officials, but it does not apply to foreign officials who accept or demand such bribes,” said the authors. “FEPA fills this gap by dramatically expanding U.S. enforcement authority to criminally prosecute foreign officials who accept or demand bribes from Americans or American companies.”

Ropes & Gray also released a recent alert “U.S. Congress Passes Law to Criminally Prosecute Corrupt Foreign Officials,” which provides more detail into the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act as a component of the annual National Defense Authorization Act to criminally prosecute foreign officials who seek or receive bribes from U.S. persons or businesses.

Simply put, FEPA will make it easier for the DOJ to prosecute foreign officials involved in bribery schemes.

“It remains to be seen whether and to what extent the DOJ will apply FEPA to investigate and prosecute foreign officials who otherwise would not have been charged under existing law, e.g., money laundering,” the authors added.

The current political and legal landscape signals that companies should prepare for sustained and potentially new enforcement activity.

“In particular, companies owned or operated, even in part, by foreign governments — even those companies that operate in commerce like purely private companies — need to analyze the risk they and their employees may face under FEPA,” said the authors.