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    Mar. 26, 2025

FCPA Executive Order: Staying the Course in the Face of Continued Risk

In the U.S., per an executive order (EO) issued by President Donald Trump, FCPA enforcement is on “pause” while AG Pam Bondi reviews current cases and guidance. Though the language in the EO indicates that companies can relax compliance programs designed to prevent bribery and corruption, experts in the field who spoke with the Anti-Corruption Report both on and off the record advised otherwise. The first article in this two-part series explored the possibly dim future for anti-corruption enforcement in the U.S. This second article discusses the significant risks that companies still face and why they should remain vigilant. See “2024 in Review: International Cooperation Continues to Drive ABAC Enforcement” (Dec. 18, 2024).

M&A Considerations for the New Frontiers of U.K. Compliance Risk

Amidst the significant activity and limited bandwidth of those involved in any corporate M&A transaction, compliance-related due diligence is often not a priority. However, corporate marriages made in haste can be repented at leisure, and those acquiring companies can inherit more than they expected, particularly with developments in the U.K. that significantly lower the bar for findings of corporate criminality. In this guest article, Simon Airey, Kelly Newsome, James Dobias and William Merry of McDermott Will & Emery review the recent changes resulting from the passage of the U.K. Economic Crime & Corporate Transparency Act 2023, consider how it impacts M&A risk for companies worldwide with any U.K. touchpoints, and offer suggestions for what companies should be doing to mitigate the associated risk. See “U.K. Enhances Anti-Fraud Efforts With Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act” (Jan. 17, 2024).

How Money Laundering Allegations Turn Foreign Violations Into Domestic Cases

Federal prosecutors are increasingly flexing their jurisdictional muscle by anchoring U.S. criminal and civil cases to violations of foreign law. Their strategy has been to leverage U.S. statutes that make “specified unlawful activity” (SUA) a basis for violations of U.S. law, even when the statute making the activity “unlawful” is a foreign statute. This enables prosecutors to pursue criminal charges, civil money laundering cases and asset forfeitures based on foreign offenses, converting foreign violations into powerful domestic enforcement tools. In a guest article, Pryor Cashman partner Jeffrey Alberts and associate Aaron Wiltse look at the statutory language regarding SUAs, including how courts have interpreted this language in recent cases. See “How the DOJ Keeps Stretching Its Extraterritorial Reach” (Jul. 31, 2024).

How the Change in Administration Is Impacting Government Contractors

Recent executive orders and memoranda issued since the Trump administration began in January 2025, have had an immediate impact on organizations that contract with the federal government and there will be more changes to come. John Prairie and Kevin Maynard, partners at Wiley, discussed changes made by the new administration that impact government contractors in a session at the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics Government Contracting Compliance & Ethics Conference held at the end of February 2025. This article distills their insights. See “Understanding and Mitigating Risk of Organizational Conflicts of Interest for Government Vendors” (Mar. 13, 2024).

Unifying Risk Assessments: Breaking Silos to Enhance Efficiency and Manage Risk

Driven by increasingly sophisticated regulations, ethical and contractual considerations, and customer expectations, among other factors, risk assessment questionnaires have become more complex, with entirely new categories like artificial intelligence assessments. Development professionals have complained about having to complete four or five different reviews before launching their product. Yet, there is rarely a single consolidated view or summary to assess an organization’s overall risk exposure from these various reviews. In this guest article, privacy expert Pari Sarnot discusses the growing complexity of risk assessments and issues that arise from their siloed completion, and offers practical solutions that lie in unification of the process and using metrics to measure success. See our four-part guide to risk assessments: “Types of Assessments” (Jun. 26, 2019), “Techniques and Building a Team” (Aug. 7, 2019), “Where to Look for Risk and Risk Ranking” (Sep. 4, 2019), and “Wrapping Up and Avoiding Pitfalls” (Jan. 22, 2020).

Nat Edmonds Moves to DLA Piper

DLA Piper has welcomed Nat Edmonds as a partner in its white collar, investigations and government enforcement practice in Washington, D.C. He arrives from Paul Hastings. For commentary from Edmonds, see our three-part series “2024 in Review”: International Cooperation Continues to Drive ABAC Enforcement (Dec. 18, 2024), Policy Changes Seek to Shift the Self-Reporting Calculus (Jan. 15, 2025), and Industry Sweeps and Data Analytics to Find Cases (Jan. 29, 2025).

Steptoe Welcomes Human Rights Team

Steptoe has expanded its global investigations, business and human rights, and anti-corruption capabilities with the addition of partners Jonathan Drimmer and Yousuf Aftab, senior counsel Timothy Dickinson, and their substantial team of lawyers and advisors. Both Drimmer and Dickinson were most recently partners at Paul Hastings and are based in Washington, D.C. Yousuf is based in New York. For commentary from Drimmer, see “E.U.’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive Demands Environmental and Social Compliance” (May 8, 2024).

Former Federal Prosecutor Joins Nardello

Nardello & Co. has announced that former federal prosecutor Benet Kearney has joined the firm’s white collar criminal defense, anti-corruption and fraud investigations, and litigation and arbitration support practices as a managing director in New York. Kearney spent the last decade at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), most recently serving as Deputy Chief of the SDNY’s Capitol Siege Section, Breach & Assault Unit. For insights from Nardello & Co., see “Conducting Effective Anti-Corruption Due Diligence on Third Parties: An Interview with Principals at Nardello & Co.” (Sep. 26, 2013).

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Women to Watch: Contributions, Achievements and Observations of Outstanding Female Professionals

To mark International Women’s Day, women editors and reporters at ION Analytics interviewed outstanding women in the industries and jurisdictions we cover. In this part, Law Report Group editors Jill Abitbol, Robin L. Barton and Megan Zwiebel profile notable women in data privacy, cybersecurity, private funds and anti-corruption law, including Anne-Gabrielle Haie, Jessica Lee, Micaela McMurrough, Laura Perkins, Amanda Raad, Madelyn Calabrese, Ranah Esmaili and Genna Garver. Enjoy reading their inspiring remarks here.