Law Commons^™

Fcpa Sanctions: Too Big To Debar?, Dru Stevenson

Dru Stevenson

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) criminalizes bribery of foreign government officials; enforcement actions against corporations under the FCPA have been increasingly significantly in the last few years. There is an ongoing problem, however, with the sanctions for FCPA violations: enforcement agencies (DOJ and SEC) have limited themselves to fines, civil penalties, and occasional imprisonment of individual violators. Debarment from future federal government contracts, even temporarily, is an unused sanction for FCPA violations, even though Congress provided for this punishment by statute. Debarment would be a far more potent deterrent than fines and penalties, if the government were serious about …