Designed for busy in-house counsel, compliance professionals, and anti-corruption lawyers, this newsletter summarizes some of the most important international anti-corruption law and enforcement developments from the past month, with links to primary resources. This month we ask: How is the anti-corruption landscape evolving in the early days of the Trump administration? Which countries had the best, and the worst, showings in Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index? What sectors will be added to China’s continuing anti-corruption crackdown in 2025? The answers to these questions and more are here in our February 2025 Top 10.
1. President Trump Orders Six-Month FCPA Enforcement Pause
On February 10, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order (the “FCPA EO”) pausing all investigations and prosecutions under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for at least 180 days. (The administration simultaneously released an accompanying “Fact Sheet” arguing that the pause will restore American competitiveness and security.) The FCPA EO directs the Attorney General (AG), during the pause, to cease initiation of any new FCPA investigations unless the AG determines that an individual exception should be made; to review in detail all existing FCPA investigations or enforcement actions and take appropriate action with respect to such matters to “restore proper bounds on FCPA enforcement and preserve Presidential foreign policy prerogatives”; and to issue updated guidelines or policies “to adequately promote the President’s Article II authority to conduct foreign affairs and prioritize American interests, American economic competitiveness with respect to other nations, and the efficient use of Federal law enforcement resources.” Once the revised guidelines are issued and FCPA enforcement is allowed to resume, cases will be governed by the updated guidelines and must be “specifically authorized by the Attorney General.” The FCPA EO also empowers the AG to review prior FCPA cases and take “remedial measures,” if the prior cases are deemed “inappropriate” in light of the revised guidelines. The EO allows for one additional 180-day extension to the pause. The FCPA EO clearly portends changes to FCPA enforcement, but what those changes will be, and how they will impact the trajectory of FCPA enforcement, will only be known when the new guidelines are announced. For more on the FCPA EO and other recent developments in FCPA enforcement under the Trump administration, see our recent client alert.
2. Attorney General’s “Day One” Memos Reshape U.S. Foreign Bribery Enforcement
On February 5, 2025, on the day she was sworn into office, AG Pam Bondi released a number of memos (the “Day One Memos”), including one titled “Total Elimination of Cartels and Transitional Criminal Organizations” (“the Cartel/TCO Memo”), which includes directives related to FCPA investigations and enforcement, as well as various anti-kleptocracy initiatives.
- Attorney General Signals Potential FCPA Enforcement Pivot Toward Cartels/TCOs. The Cartel/TCO Memo directs the FCPA Unit, within the Fraud Section of DOJ’s Criminal Division, to “prioritize FCPA investigations related to foreign bribery that facilitates the criminal operations of Cartels and TCOs, and shift focus away from investigations and cases that do not involve such a connection” for a 90-day period, subject to renewal by the AG. The memo also suggests that this newly prioritized category of FCPA cases could be brought by any U.S. Attorney’s Office, rather than the FCPA Unit, as long as they provide the Fraud Section 24 hours’ advance notice. It is not clear whether the FCPA provisions of the Cartel/TCO Memo survived the FCPA EO, but it is not unreasonable to predict that the guidelines issued pursuant to the FCPA EO will include language regarding using the FCPA, at least in part, to combat cartels and TCOs.
- Attorney General Ends Kleptocracy Initiatives. The Cartel/TCO Memo also announced the disbandment of DOJ’s KleptoCapture Task Force and Kleptocracy Unit, as well as the end of the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative. The Kleptocracy Unit, part of DOJ’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS), was responsible for leading the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, which was established in 2010. It was dedicated to recovering the proceeds of foreign corruption and, where appropriate, distributing recovered assets to governments harmed by official corruption and abuse. Among other significant cases, this initiative played a large role in DOJ’s efforts to recover and distribute money misappropriated from Malaysia’s investment development fund, 1MDB. (For more information on this effort, see, for example, our January 2025 Top 10.) The KleptoCapture Task Force was a newer initiative established in March 2022 to help enforce sanctions that had been imposed by the United States and various other countries in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was run by the Office of the Deputy Attorney General (ODAG) and tasked with investigating and prosecuting sanctions violations, as well as recovering funds laundered in an effort to evade U.S. sanctions. Resources that had been dedicated to these efforts will instead be “committed to the total elimination of Cartels and TCOs.”
3. DOJ Moves to Dismiss Bribery Charges Against New York City Mayor
On February 10, 2025, Emil Bove, the Acting Deputy Attorney General (DAG), directed the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York to dismiss all pending charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Adams was indicted in September 2024 on bribery, campaign finance, and conspiracy charges related to payments and benefits he allegedly received from Turkish nationals, including at least one government official. The acting DAG directed that the dismissal be without prejudice, meaning the charges could be brought again later, and stated that the matter would be reviewed again after this year’s mayoral election. The acting DAG cited potential jury influence and the impact of the prosecution on Mayor Adams’ ability “to support critical, ongoing federal efforts ‘to protect the American people from the disastrous effects of unlawful mass migration and resettlement’ as described in Executive Order 14165” as reasons for the dismissal. The acting DAG added that the dismissal was in part due to former U.S. Attorney Damian Williams’ “public actions [that] created appearances of impropriety,” as Mayor Adams had previously criticized the Biden-Harris administration’s immigration policies, suggesting that the prosecution was merely for political reasons. After receiving the memorandum, seven DOJ officials resigned, including Danielle R. Sassoon, the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. The motion to dismiss was eventually filed on February 14, 2024. On February 21, 2025, the judge overseeing the case appointed former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement to present independent arguments on the government’s motion to dismiss.[1]
4. USAID Freeze Impacts Corruption Prevention Efforts Globally
Throughout February 2025, programs run by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) came to a halt, following an Executive Order, issued in late January 2025, that froze all foreign aid programs during a 90-day review period. By February 23, 2025, the Trump administration had placed all USAID direct hire personnel on administrative leave globally, with a narrow exception for “designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership, and/or specially designated programs.” Thousands of USAID employees were fired and dozens of USAID contractors were terminated throughout the month. An array of anti-corruption efforts were impacted by the cuts, including programs that supported Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission and the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Ukraine, among others. The funding freeze also impacted the work of investigative news outlets around the globe, including publications focused on exposing corrupt conduct.
5. CFTC Revises Self-Reporting and Cooperation Guidance
On February 25, 2025, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued an Enforcement Advisory on Self-Reporting, Cooperation, and Remediation. The Advisory provides guidance to CFTC staff on how to weigh these factors when deciding whether to recommend an enforcement action and when calculating a proposed penalty. The document therefore offers valuable insights for individuals and entities who could be subject to a CFTC enforcement action. The Advisory states that self-reports will be assessed against a three-tiered scale (none, satisfactory, exemplary) and cooperation against a four-tiered scale (none, satisfactory, excellent, exemplary), providing guidance as to what is required to meet each tier. For example, an “exemplary self-report” must include all material information plus additional information to further assist CFTC with the investigation, while “exemplary cooperation” requires “proactive engagement and the use of significant resources” to assist CFTC, as well as “significant completion of remediation” measures. The advisory also introduces a new “Mitigation Credit Matrix,” which provides the “presumptive Mitigation Credit” based on the assessed quality of self-reporting or cooperation. The matrix grants up to 55% credit to parties who have exhibited exemplary self-reporting and exemplary cooperation. In the past, CFTC and DOJ have cooperated to pursue foreign bribery cases through CFTC’s use of the Commodity Exchange Act in conjunction with DOJ’s use of the FCPA. (For examples, see our December 2020, May 2022, November 2022, December 2023, and September 2024 Top 10s.) Thus, the new CFTC guidance could impact foreign bribery cases handled by that agency.
6. Former Illinois House Speaker Found Guilty on Fraud, Bribery, and Conspiracy Charges
On February 12, 2025, a federal jury in Chicago convicted the former Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, Michael J. Madigan, on ten counts, including one count of conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, four counts of using interstate facilities to promote unlawful activity, three counts of wire fraud, and two counts of bribery. In 2022, Madigan and his friend Michael McClain were indicted on 23 total counts, with prosecutors alleging that the men engaged in several schemes to personally and politically benefit Madigan. The jury found that Madigan had solicited bribes from Commonwealth Edison (ComEd)—the state’s largest electricity provider and a company for which defendant McClain was a lobbyist—in exchange for favorable legislation. The company also hired Madigan’s associates as subcontractors with little to no expectation of work, again in exchange for favorable legislation. Additionally, the jury found that Madigan had promised to help appoint a Chicago alderman to a more lucrative state board position in exchange for the alderman bringing business to Madigan’s private law firm. Madigan was acquitted of seven other charges, including attempted extortion, and the jury did not reach a verdict on the six remaining counts, including one count of racketeering conspiracy. In September 2023, ComEd and its parent company agreed to pay a civil penalty of $36.2 million to resolve FCPA accounting charges, among others, allegedly related to Madigan—a reminder that the FCPA’s accounting violations can reach more than just foreign bribery offenses.
7. Transparency International Releases Annual Corruption Perceptions Index
On February 11, 2025, Transparency International (TI) published its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2024. The CPI, which ranks 180 countries and territories around the world by their perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), provides one of the major data points used by compliance professionals, outside counsel, and enforcement officials in assessing the anti-corruption risk of doing business in particular countries. The top five countries for 2024 were Denmark, leading for its seventh year in a row (90); Finland (88); Singapore (84); New Zealand (83); and Luxembourg, Norway, and Switzerland with equivalent scores (81). The bottom five were South Sudan (8, ranked 180); Somalia (9, ranked 179); Venezuela (10, ranked 178); Syria (12, ranked 177); and Yemen, Libya, Eritrea, and Equatorial Guinea with equivalent scores (13, ranked 173). As discussed in our client alert examining CPI results in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC), China (43, ranked 76), and Indonesia (37, ranked 99) were two of the countries exhibiting a positive anti-corruption trajectory in the APAC region, while India’s rating (38, ranked 96) has fallen year-on-year since 2022. At the global level, this year’s CPI designated a number of major markets as “significant improvers” or “significant decliners” over the past decade, with China (six-point increase) and Kuwait (seven-point increase) falling into the former category and Canada (eight-point drop) and the U.S. (11-point drop) falling into the latter.
8. Former Executive of Swiss Commodities Trader Found Guilty in Connection with Congolese Bribery Scheme
On February 20, 2025, a Swiss court found a former executive of Gunvor Group Ltd., a Geneva-based energy commodities trading company, guilty of bribing government officials in the Republic of the Congo in exchange for oil delivery contracts in 2010 and 2011. The former executive was alleged to have made over 35 payments ranging in amount from $150,000 to $3.5 million, for a total of $35.5 million. Among the evidence used to convict the defendant were emails the defendant had sent to a colleague recommending that he use different wordings in receipts he generated to make their falsity less “obvious” in the hopes of avoiding “bank compliance . . . com[ing] down on us.” The former executive was sentenced to a suspended two-year prison term and ordered to pay a $950,000 fine and $51,000 in attorney’s fees. In October 2019, Gunvor was convicted in Switzerland for related conduct and was ordered to pay roughly $95 million in fines and disgorgement. (The company also pleaded guilty in March 2024 to conspiring to violate the FCPA in connection with unrelated conduct.)
9. Swiss Bank Discloses One-Year Extension in Tuna Bonds DPA
In a February 4, 2025, securities filing, the Swiss banking giant, UBS Group, stated that, as permitted under the terms of the DPA from the so-called “tuna bonds” case, DOJ elected to extend the three-year term of the DPA by one additional year. The DPA stems from a plea agreement entered into by Credit Suisse Group AG in October 2021 to resolve allegations that the Swiss bank, through its UK subsidiary, defrauded U.S. and international investors with regard to an $850 million loan for a tuna fishing project in Mozambique. Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and paid more than $547 million in penalties, fines, and disgorgement as part of a coordinated resolution with both U.S. and UK authorities. When UBS completed its acquisition of Credit Suisse in 2024, it became the successor to the DPA. For more on the “tuna bonds” case, see our January 2019, March 2019, October 2021, July 2023, May 2024, August 2024, and January 2025 Top 10s.
10. Chinese Authorities Announce Ramp Up of Corruption Crackdown
In February 2025, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP)—the country’s top prosecutorial office—announced that it intends to increase its anti-corruption crackdown in 2025. The SPP stated that it will seek harsher punishments for those who offer bribe payments, while maintaining its tough stance against officials who accept such payments. The SPP’s enforcement ramp up last year targeted corruption in the healthcare, education, and employment sectors. As documented in an official report released on February 27, 2025, the areas of focus for 2025 will extend to finance, state-owned enterprises, energy, and sports, among other sectors. The report states that China’s anti-corruption campaign produced significant results throughout 2024, including handing down disciplinary or administrative penalties to 889,000 individuals involved in corruption, repatriating 1,597 corrupt fugitives, retrieving over 18 billion yuan (roughly $2.5 billion) in stolen assets, and receiving self-reports from 25,000 individuals involved in corruption, among other notable statistics. For more on China’s corruption crackdown in recent years, see our July 2023, October 2024, December 2024, and January 2025 Top 10s.
[1] Order, United States v. Adams, Case No. 1:24-CR-00556-DEH (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 21, 2025), ECF No. 136.
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