Homer Moyer [Member, Miller & Chevalier]: "This week's highly publicized arrest of 22 corporate executives for violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is newsworthy and in some respects unprecedented, but otherwise confirms FCPA enforcement trends that have been increasingly evident in recent years. Unprecedented were the simultaneous arrests of 22 individuals, a number that surpassed the record-setting total of 19 individual arrests in 2009. The detailed public briefing by senior officials of the Department of Justice, FBI, and US Attorneys Office, which followed the arrests, provided an unusual level of publicity, which media and blogs quickly relayed across the globe.

The enforcement focus on individual executives and employees reflects a continuing escalation of FCPA prosecutions of individuals, a trend that some enforcement officials have implied may be a more effective deterrent than corporate prosecutions. These indictments will likely be followed by indictments of corporations in the arms and law enforcement products industry for which arrested individuals worked. This pattern, which reverses the sequence found in most early FCPA enforcement actions, offers enforcement agencies the advantage of perfecting their cases against corporations through the testimony of individual employees who have been indicted and have then elected to cooperate with enforcement authorities.

The focus on an entire industry – conveniently demonstrated here by the arrest of numerous executives who had gathered in Las Vegas for an industry convention – is one that the Department of Justice and the SEC have evidenced in recent years and have, more recently, explicitly acknowledged. These arrests echo what the Justice Department itself describes as past investigations that have concentrated on the oil and gas industry and on pharmaceuticals and medical device companies. Officials have also acknowledged that an expansive investigation of corrupt payments to customs officials through customs brokers is ongoing.

In answer to questions, Justice Department officials stated that the use of undercover tactics, widely reported as a "sting" operation, is a "natural outgrowth" of increasing levels of FCPA enforcement and the expanded use of FBI resources. As this investigation began more than two years ago, it would be a mistake to read into it any recent political or policy shifts, although it is another example of increasing international cooperation among enforcement authorities of different countries. With 140 FCPA investigations still in the pipeline, there is a yet-to-be-defined universe of corporations and corporate executives for whom the lessons of this investigation may be relevant."