The long arm of U.S. regulatory compliance is now reaching ever more deeply into overseas corporations—even, when necessary, reaching over the shoulder of local regulators not enforcing their own standards to U.S. liking.
American prosecutors have spent the better part of a decade pushing the boundaries of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits companies from bribing foreign officials to win business. In the last several years, however, that re-interpretation has achieved unsettling new heights for corporations in Europe and elsewhere, facing Washington-based prosecutors seizing any pretence of a U.S. nexus as grounds for FCPA enforcement.
