The Next Four Years of FCPA Enforcement: What to Expect From the Biden Administration
The Trump Administration’s Department of Justice imposed record penalties under the FCPA, but with progressively fewer new investigations each year. Sheppard Mullin expects the Biden Administration to maintain the first trend, but turn the latter around, citing five reasons:
- The DOJ manual remains essentially unchanged from the Obama Administration version.
- Biden’s DOJ will work to reverse the Trump-era depopulation of its ranks, which has left less than half of its “key positions” filled.
- FCPA enforcement is an attractive area for young prosecutors to make a mark.
- The COVID-19 recession is a “perfect storm” of incentives for fraud.
- The DOJ and SEC are effectively engaged in “sweeps” of the healthcare, aerospace, defense, and financial sectors.
