Walmart disclosed in a securities filing last week that it spent considerably less this time around than the same period last year on costs associated with its global investigation into possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that its FCPA costs have now supassed the half-billion dollar mark.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal,...