President Donald Trump recently released an executive order temporarily halting Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations and enforcement actions.
On February 10, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order and accompanying fact sheet directing Attorney General (AG) Pam Bondi to, for a period of 180 days (1) effectively halt the initiation of new Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) investigations and enforcement actions and (2) undertake a detailed review of any such existing matters with an eye toward “restoring proper bounds” on enforcement.
During this six-month period, AG Bondi is to review existing policies and guidelines governing the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) current approach to FCPA enforcement and to issue updated policies or guidelines “to prioritize American interests, American economic competitiveness with respect to other nations, and the efficient use of Federal law enforcement resources.” The order also provides for the retroactive review all current and past actions brought under the law following the issuance of any revised guidance and makes clear that, going forward, new investigations and enforcement actions must be authorized by the AG herself.
This is the second such pronouncement targeting the scope of FCPA enforcement in less than one week.
The FCPA, which contains provisions both (1) prohibiting companies and individuals from offering or paying bribes to officials of foreign governments with the intent to obtain or retain business, as well as (2) requiring public companies to implement adequate accounting controls and keep accurate books and records, has been criticized by President Trump for more than a decade. However, enforcement of the law under his first administration remained stable and did not see material change, either in terms of approach or number of actions resolved.
Less than one month into the second Trump administration, it seems clear that—at least through 2028—there will be a significant shift in the DOJ’s approach to corporate anti-corruption enforcement.
Notably, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shares jurisdiction with the DOJ over FCPA violations, specifically civil cases involving publicly traded companies. Although President Trump’s executive order notes that nothing in the order impairs or otherwise affects the authority granted by law to another agency, it is difficult to believe the administration’s expressly stated priorities as set forth in the order directing action by the AG would not also apply to other enforcing bodies.
What we know is that President Trump, as made clear in the fact sheet issued alongside the executive order, asserts that US companies are disadvantaged by FCPA enforcement because it prevents companies from “engaging in practices common among international competitors” and has thus created “an uneven playing field.” The same fact sheet cites the significant number of FCPA-related enforcement actions filed during 2024. Of course, many such actions involved former US entities—some which trade on the US markets and some which are subject to US jurisdiction through other means.
Five of the 11 corporate FCPA actions announced in 2024 involved foreign companies and approximately $772 million of the $1.28 billion in FCPA penalties collected was derived from those cases. This is on trend with recent years past.
For example, in May 2022, Swiss-based firm Glencore International A.G. and Glencore Ltd. agreed to pay over $1.1 billion to settle FCPA claims as part of the company’s coordinated resolutions with criminal and civil authorities in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. In December 2022, Swiss-based ABB Ltd. agreed to pay more than $315 million to settle FCPA claims as part of coordinated resolutions with authorities in South Africa and Switzerland.
Therefore, a critical outstanding question as to the scope of future investigations and enforcement actions related to foreign companies remains. Those actions could be viewed as consistent with President Trump’s commitment to “prioritizing American economic and security interests and ensuring US businesses have the tools to succeed globally.”
Companies both domestic and foreign should still view compliance with anti-corruption laws in the US and abroad as critical. First, the de-prioritization and potential reshaping of FCPA enforcement does not equate to immunity and does not eliminate the risk of future enforcement. Statutes of limitation for FCPA violations—five years for the anti-bribery provisions and six years for accounting provisions—extend beyond the tenure of a single administration.
In addition, the use of statutory tolling provisions, including those triggered by international requests for cooperation through Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs), can extend the time available for prosecutions for up to three years. Companies should be aware of the possibility that a future administration could take a more aggressive approach to FCPA enforcement and revisit cases that arose during this period of de-emphasis. A company’s compliance program and cooperation during this time may eventually be subject to rigorous scrutiny.
Moreover, for those companies that may have related obligations under separate US regulatory regimes, such as US government contractors, care should be taken to ensure that those commitments are still met. For example, federal contractors may still have an obligation to maintain compliance plans under existing Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) clauses and certain FAR clauses may still require reporting of violations of the FCPA, even if the DOJ is not currently enforcing the measure. Similarly, lenders, international partners and investors may expect adherence to the high anti-corruption standards they historically set for US companies.
Finally, while US enforcement may be on pause, companies operating outside US borders continue to have exposure to foreign anti-corruption laws, such as France’s Sapin II Law and the UK Bribery Act, the latter of which imposes strict liability for failure to prevent bribery. The past several years have witnessed a large uptick in enforcement actions by enforcers outside the US, many of which have modeled their approaches and resolutions tools, such as the deferred-prosecution agreement, after the United States. These regimes outside of the US will likely look to step into the breach left by the US while the US evaluates its approach to anti-corruption moving forward.
Visit our US Administration Policies and Priorities resource center and subscribe to our mailing list for the latest on programming, guidance, and current legal and business developments involving the Trump-Vance administration.
If you have any questions or would like more information on the issues discussed in this LawFlash, please contact any of the following: