As dramatic as the increase in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act fines and penalties were in 2016, one of the more important themes for the year was the globalization of enforcement. By the end of 2016, international enforcement numbers had reached a staggering level with Odebrecht/Braskem, and then in the first month of 2017 with the Rolls-Royce resolution. I want to discuss what are some of the factors leading to this dramatic upswing in fines and penalties for anti-corruption and bribery enforcement. The Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission have worked quite diligently to increase professionalism around anti-corruption enforcement in jurisdictions outside the United States. At the ACI-2016 National FCPA conference last November, Kara Brockmeyer, chief of the FCPA unit, Division of Enforcement at the SEC, and Daniel Kahn, Chief of the FCPA unit fraud section, Criminal Division at the Justice Department, articulated an additional reason, which was the increase in international cooperation and enforcement.
Over the past few years, the DoJ and SEC have worked to create a network of international cooperation in the global war against bribery and corruption. In addition to forming liaisons, they have put on three conferences dedicated to training foreign prosecutors on investigations, best practices around anti-corruption compliance program, and cooperation between countries in the sharing of documents and other evidence. Both speakers remarked about the increased sophistication of foreign prosecutors in both investigations of bribery and corruption and in understanding compliance programs around anti-corruption laws.
